The new partnership helped create the North Texas Maternal Health Accelerator, which raised $25 million in funds to improve maternal morbidity rates in North Texas.
In a nutshell
The accelerator will primarily focus on reducing obstetric complications by more than 20% over three years and rewarding maternal health improvements through sustainable incentives.
Cameron Combs, senior director of Child Poverty Action Lab and the event emcee, said the first goal would reduce complications by 500 to 600 cases a year.
“Keeping all of our mothers healthy requires our health care system to coordinate in some new ways,” Combs said. “What North Texas is attempting represents a radical departure from the status quo by tying our coalition’s revenue to demonstrating clinical improvements.”
Officials said data gathered through the partnership will come from patients in Tarrant and Dallas counties with assistance from every major health system in North Texas, according to a news release. Some participating systems include Baylor Scott & White, JPS Health Network and Methodist Health System.
The background
Eleven partners across North Texas have raised $25 million since December 2024 to support the accelerator’s health initiatives. The first initiative launched in spring 2025 to address blood transfusions, which officials said was the most common obstetric complication.
Catherine Spong, a UT Southwestern professor and the chair of obstetrics and gynecology, said the initiative provided over-the-counter iron supplements to pregnant mothers in Tarrant and Dallas counties to reduce the risk of a blood transfusion after delivery.
“We found that handing a bottle of iron to women during their prenatal visit, rather than recommending that they purchase it on their own, reduces the risk of anemia during delivery, pregnancy, improves health outcomes and reduces symptomatic anemia postpartum by one third,” Spong said.
The initiative started with Fort Worth’s John Peter Smith Family Health Center and has since expanded to 60 North Texas sites.
Put in perspective
Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said Tarrant County has the second-highest maternal mortality rate in Texas. She started the Tarrant County Maternal & Infant Health Coalition in September 2022, where the accelerator originated.
The coalition previously found that:
- Tarrant County has the second-highest maternal mortality rate among Black women in Texas, at 48.3 deaths per 100,000 live births.
- One in 7 Texas women experiences depression within six months after pregnancy.
- Mental health conditions are a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths.
- Texas accounts for 10% of all births in the U.S.—400,000 annually, with 27,161 live births in Tarrant County.
The partnership will officially start in January 2026, with initial impact results expected to be released in mid- to fall 2026. Parker described the accelerator as an opportunity for the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth to share resources across the metroplex.
“We are soon to be the third-largest metro region in the entire country,” Parker said. “We’re supposed to have the best data in the country to demonstrate all the systems we need to have in place across the country.”
