As Abortion Bans Drive Up Maternal, Infant Mortality, Trump Admin. Shutters Key CDC Program

The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), which has worked to identify groups of pregnant people and infants at higher risk of health complications since 1988, was quietly shut down following Trump's inauguration.

By Kylie Cheung | February 25, 2025 | 12:13pm

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As Abortion Bans Drive Up Maternal, Infant Mortality, Trump Admin. Shutters Key CDC Program

This week, we learned the latest casualty in the Trump administration’s war on government programs that allegedly promote “DEI” is the CDC’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS). The federal data collection and research program has existed since 1988 and studies infant and maternal health data in order to help improve outcomes. Not even the first Trump administration disrupted its vital work.

Talking Points Memo first reported on PRAMS’ shuttering over the weekend. Since, the outlet’s follow-up reporting claims PRAMS was shut down for supposedly promoting “DEI,” or diversity, equity, and inclusion, as the administration wages a racist witch hunt to weed out programs that—God forbid—support or promote diversity.

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The administration reportedly takes issue with PRAMS’ survey and research protocol, which includes questionnaires that ask about race, sexual orientation, and identity and class status— many of the questions were first introduced in 2023. Ironically, TPM notes that PRAMS was quite literally created in the ’80s to figure out why Black women and babies had “worse health outcomes” than white women and babies. Today, according to the CDC’s own data, Black pregnant people are still three to four times more likely than white pregnant people to die from pregnancy or birth-related causes. But under Trump’s executive order, acknowledging this reality—rooted in persistent medical racism and generations of economic inequality—is wasteful “DEI.”

TPM reports that PRAMS is likely to resume operations at some point, but that it’ll be a long process that involves “re-writing the research protocol” and getting it re-approved through multiple reviews. Of course, addressing racial disparities in maternal and infant health outcomes sounds pretty difficult without asking about people’s racial identities, and… that seems to be the point.

PRAMS was shut down shortly after Inauguration Day and has not accepted any additional data after January 31st. If you’re thinking, “Hmm, that’s weird! I hadn’t heard anything about this,” that was likely intentional. There was no official announcement, nor did the agency contact external organizations who were in the middle of collaborating with PRAMS researchers.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Jezebel about PRAMS or the Trump administration’s alleged issues with PRAMS’ questionnaires. We’ll update if they do.

This administration, led by Musk, has been swinging its proverbial chainsaw through a range of crucial government programs and agencies for the last month, but this attack on PRAMS is especially devastating. Earlier this month, a new study in JAMA reported an alarming rise in infant mortality in abortion-banned states, with even higher infant mortality among Black communities and in Southern states. In June, a separate study reported a 13% increase in infant mortality in Texas in the first year after the state’s 2021 abortion ban took effect. Speaking of Texas, just last week, ProPublica reported that also since the state’s 2021 ban, the sepsis rate among people who were hospitalized while losing a pregnancy in the second trimester surged by more than 50%. Texas’ maternal mortality rate skyrocketed in kind: From 2019 to 2023, it rose by 33%. Researchers and OBGYNs warned ProPublica that other abortion-banned states are likely seeing the same outcomes.

Last week, public health workers at the CDC’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) also reported being fired from their work to improve maternal health outcomes at lower costs. One of the affected workers, Arielle Kane, tweeted directly at Musk—who often pushes creepy, alarmist messages about the national birth rate. “Your doge minions just fired me and my colleagues at CMMI. We were working on improving maternal health outcomes AT LOWER COSTS so that less pregnant women would die in this county,” Kane wrote. “I thought that would fit nicely into your agenda?” Treating Kane like the mothers of his varying children, Musk ignored her.

Shutting down PRAMS is part and parcel of the Trump administration’s broader war on reproductive health, from censoring key information about reproductive health from federal websites to defunding global organizations that so much as offer information about abortion services to empowering anti-abortion activists to violently protest abortion clinics. All in the span of a month.