Mental health conditions contribute to nearly one in four pregnancy-related deaths in the US, but the national healthcare system isn’t equipped to tackle the scope of the crisis.

Pregnancy is a vulnerable period for birthing people that can either prompt new or exacerbate existing mental health problems. Postpartum depression is a widespread issue, while the risks of drug overdose and suicide increase within a year of a pregnancy. Yet struggling patients frequently face payment issues, long wait times, stigma, and other barriers when they seek help—something few do in the first place.

These roadblocks are the product of the country’s fragmented healthcare system, according to maternal health providers and advocates. The hurdles reflect the broader strain on behavioral health resources, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The problem is so severe that in 2022, the American Hospital Association called on health systems to take steps to improve maternal mental health.

As it stands, perinatal people with behavioral health issues are caught in a troublesome catch-22, said Sue Gullo, who directs healthcare improvement company Premier Inc’s women and infants unit. Mental health clinicians aren’t experts in pregnancy care, while ob-gyns and other pregnancy providers aren’t equipped to manage severe mental health issues.

“There’s all these complexities that don’t create a safety net for these moms,” Gullo said.

Many patients fall through the cracks. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends all perinatal people get screened for mental health conditions, but data on health plan quality indicates providers aren’t meeting standards. On average, just 8.8% of privately insured pregnant women were screened for depression in 2021, compared with 15.7% among those with Medicaid coverage. Keep reading here.—GG

It’s wintertime, so naturally we’re thinking about snowflakes. More specifically, Snowflake: the cloud-based data storage software company that made the largest software IPO ever back in 2020, hit a $100 billion market cap, and later plunged more than 50%.

Snowflake’s healthcare and life sciences data cloud provides health systems, payers, pharmaceuticals, and health tech companies with technology to analyze their data and get insight into their businesses.

Jesse Cugliotta, the global industry go-to-market lead for healthcare and life sciences at Snowflake, sat down with Healthcare Brew to chat about how the healthcare industry should use data and how he thinks data will affect healthcare in 2023.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Health systems haven’t been the quickest to utilize data in the same way other industries have. Why is that?

A lot of their energy is going into the delivery of care itself versus building data and analytics efficiency, historically. Now that’s changing. The entire industry had its world rocked during Covid. It was essentially trying to deal with huge potential influxes of patients without a lot of predictability as to when or where they would show up, all while dealing with both personnel and supply shortages. Everyone recognized that now’s the time to try new things, because we don’t really have any other choice in this sort of scenario.

What are some ways health systems can use their data to improve care delivery?

Staffing is always a key challenge these days. There are things that can be done from a data analytic standpoint that can allow you to make the best decisions at any given time, and a big part of that is predicting the volume of patients that could potentially be coming in the door. Keep reading here.—MA

Welcome to ART class! No, not that kind of art. Today, we’re learning about ART, or assisted reproductive technology.

In the simplest terms, ART is technology that helps a person get pregnant, said Michael Thomas, chair of the obstetrics and gynecology department at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The CDC defines ART as “all fertility treatments in which either eggs or embryos are handled,” but the term does not include treatments in which only sperm are handled, like artificial insemination.

The most common ART form is in vitro fertilization, or IVF, which involves an egg being taken out of ovaries, fertilized with sperm in a laboratory, and then placed into a uterus.

ART was born (haha, get it?) in 1978, when the first successful human IVF pregnancy took place in England. By 2019, 2.1% of all babies born in the US and Puerto Rico were conceived using this medical technology.

Though IVF is the most common form of ART, it’s not cheap. The average cost of a single cycle of IVF treatment in the US is $12,400, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), a nonprofit whose mission is to advance “the science and practice of reproductive medicine.” However, insurance usually doesn’t cover fertility services.

The field of ART is “definitely underfunded,” said Thomas, who is also the current president of the ASRM. But, he added that the sector has made some big advances.

Up until the last seven or eight years, multiple embryos were transferred into a uterus during IVF to increase the chances that at least one would stick and develop into a fetus. However, that raises the risk of multiple pregnancy, which increases the odds of a preterm birth, said Thomas.—MA

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Human bodies can spread Covid-19 “for as long as 17 days after death.” (the New York Times)

Quote: “To us, she is alive. She was alive.”—Tina Mody, a woman who miscarried, on the topic of when life begins (the New York Times)

Read: This quiz will assess the strength of your relationships. (the New York Times)

Catch up on the top Healthcare Brew stories you may have missed:

• China’s Covid U-turn unleashes viral wave
• Why do insurers use trackers?
• Investors are going all in on these femtech products