By Justin Huang, Senior Analyst, Policy Impact, Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP); Kirstie Perrotta, MPH, Teratogen Information Specialist, MotherToBaby California; and Lorrie Harris-Sagaribay, MPH, Teratogen Information Specialist, MotherToBaby North Carolina

Creating new educational resources often requires significant investments. However, when partners with aligned visions collaborate to identify resource gaps and work together to produce new materials, the end results and opportunities can be amplified.

This is what happened when the Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP) and our long-standing partner, MotherToBaby, identified important resource gaps surrounding pregnancy and breastfeeding and created new educational materials to fill those gaps.

As mutual recipients of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cooperative agreement supporting partnerships to improve maternal and child health outcomes, MotherToBaby and AMCHP met in early 2024 to discuss areas of aligned interest and complementary skills. AMCHP had an interest in heart health, while MotherToBaby’s focus is on the impact of exposures (including maternal health conditions and infections) on pregnancy outcomes. After several brainstorming sessions, the partners identified rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and group A strep (GAS) infections in pregnancy as exposures that significantly impact maternal populations of interest to AMCHP and for which limited resources are available for healthcare providers and patients.

To address this gap in resources, AMCHP and MotherToBaby created new fact sheets on RHD and GAS, along with a fact sheet on group B strep (GBS). These educational resources outline what is known about these exposures in pregnancy and lactation with regard to any possible increased risks of miscarriage, birth defects, or pregnancy complications, and provide valuable information to healthcare providers and patients who are affected by these conditions. These resources add to the extensive collection of fact sheets available at no cost on the MotherToBaby website. AMCHP and MotherToBaby co-presented the newly published fact sheets during poster sessions at the recent 2025 AMCHP conference.

The Impact of Infection on Mothers and Babies

Although medical professionals in the perinatal space are often familiar with group B strep infections and their impact on newborns, the lesser-known group A strep infections, including strep throat and cellulitis, and their connections to rheumatic heart disease and health across the lifespan, remain less familiar. Specifically, group A strep infections that happen near or during labor can be passed along to newborns and, if left untreated, can lead to rheumatic fever, which can then lead to a lifelong condition known as rheumatic heart disease.

Next Steps

As AMCHP strives to learn more about these conditions and educate affected populations about heart health and its intersections with maternal and child health, we are grateful for our partnership with MotherToBaby in producing these evidence-based fact sheets. Next steps will include identifying ways to effectively promote and distribute the resources to key healthcare providers and patients in order to advance awareness about the possible impacts of rheumatic heart disease and group A strep infections in pregnancy.

About MotherToBaby

MotherToBaby, a service of the nonprofit Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS), is the nation’s leading authority and most trusted source of evidence-based information on the risks and benefits of medications and other exposures during pregnancy or while breastfeeding. MotherToBaby specializes in answering questions about exposures such as medications, vaccines, chemicals, herbal products, substance use, maternal health conditions, and more. Their no-cost information service is available in English and Spanish to those who are pregnant and/or breastfeeding, their family members, health professionals, and the general public, via chat, text, phone, and email. To learn more about the MotherToBaby service and to view our co-created fact sheets on RHD, GAS, and GBS, please visit: https://mothertobaby.org/.