Beyond Survival: Carrying Chronic Maternal Morbidity into the Maternal Wellbeing Agenda

A closed-door, invitation-only roundtable convened by ARMMAN and the International Urogynecological Association (IUGA) during UN General Assembly High-Level Week.

The global maternal health movement has achieved one of the great successes of modern public health: maternal deaths have fallen dramatically over the past three decades. Yet for the millions of women who survive childbirth each year, the story does not end at delivery — or at the six-week postnatal visit where formal maternal care, in most of the world, currently ends. What follows for a substantial proportion of them is a long tail of chronic morbidity that today’s health systems neither measure nor treat, and that global health metrics do not see.

The roundtable will bring together multilateral agencies, philanthropic partners, gender and advocacy organizations, health-worker organizations, maternal health organizations, the obstetric fistula community, and a lived-experience voice to explore how chronic maternal morbidity — pelvic and mental — can be given visibility within the operational phase of the maternal wellbeing agenda.

The conversation will explore four questions: How can chronic maternal morbidity — pelvic and mental — be given visibility within the operational phase of the maternal wellbeing agenda, including in measurement? What would it take — in evidence, tools, health-worker capacity, and financing — to extend maternal care meaningfully beyond six weeks? Is there appetite among the institutions present to work together — as a community of practice or coalition — in support of this agenda, and if so, what should the first steps be? And how might a maternal health and function index be developed to assess whether a woman is truly well at one year postpartum, capturing pelvic floor function and maternal mental health alongside the other dimensions of maternal wellbeing — and by whom?

The aspiration for the morning is simple: to build a shared understanding of the problem, have an honest exchange on what is feasible, and, if there is value in doing so, identify a basis for continuing the conversation together. Any collective next steps will emerge from the discussion and be shaped by the participants in the room.