Read more about the HHS offices and agencies included in this section.
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Health and Wellness
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- Mental Health
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Diseases and Conditions
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- HIV and AIDS
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Reproductive Health
- Breastfeeding
- Menopause
- Menstrual Cycle
- Ovulation Calculator
- Pregnancy
- Patient Materials
- Increase in breastfeeding
- Increasing women's lifespan
- Policy of inclusion of women in clinical trials
- Improvements in breast cancer screening
- Improvements in mental health care for women
- Decrease in breast cancer deaths
- Decrease in smoking rates for women
- Decrease in teen pregnancy
- Cervical cancer prevention and screening
- Decrease in HIV/AIDS deaths in women
- Federal funding to address violence against women
- Decrease in lung cancer deaths in women
- Mother-to-child transmission of HIV decreased
- Decrease in deaths from women's leading killer – heart disease
- Making birth control better, safer, and more accessible for women
- Creation of Offices on Women's Health at the federal level
- Cancer and Steroid Hormone (CASH) study
- Approval of emergency contraception
- Building better osteoporosis treatments
- Efforts to improve pregnant women's health and outcomes
- Dangerous drugs and devices for women removed from market
- Improvements in support to caregivers
- Improvements in older women's health
- Largest women's health prevention study ever – Women's Health Initiative
- FDA helps women and families meet their nutritional needs
- Addressing sex differences in health
- Addressing minority women's health
- Recognizing the needs of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women
- Creation of women's health information resources
- Affordable Care Act improves women's health
- 30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
- HHS and women's health: Agency and office descriptions
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- 30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
- Efforts to improve pregnant women's health and outcomes
- CDC, Recent Declines in Infant Mortality in the United States, 2005 - 2011
- CDC, Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System
- CDC, Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System
- CDC, Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System
- text4baby, Government Partner: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
- HHS, Women and the Affordable Care Act
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30 Achievements in Women's Health in 30 Years (1984 – 2014)
Call the OWH HELPLINE: 1-800-994-9662
9 a.m. — 6 p.m. ET, Monday — Friday
OWH and the OWH helpline do not see patients and are unable to: diagnose your medical condition; provide treatment; prescribe medication; or refer you to specialists. The OWH helpline is a resource line. The OWH helpline does not provide medical advice.
Please call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room if you are experiencing a medical emergency.Efforts to improve pregnant women's health and outcomes
Today, most women in the United States receive excellent health care during pregnancy. As a result, the U.S. infant mortality rate has dropped to an all-time low of 6 deaths per 1,000 births.1However, pregnancy-related deaths and serious complications for mothers have increased in the United States during the last 30 years, for reasons that are uncertain. The increase could be due to a combination of circumstances, including improved data collection on pregnancy mortality, an increase in the number of older mothers, and the increase in obesity among women.2
Researchers do know that pregnant women today are more likely to have chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease, which can put them at risk for poor outcomes.3 Also, large differences in pregnancy-related death and complications between racial and ethnic groups and geographic areas must be addressed.4 HHS is working to improve the health of all women, including women who may become pregnant.
Since the CDC began monitoring pregnancy health in 1987 with the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, women have learned about the important ways they can improve their health during pregnancy. CDC launched the Show Your Love campaign in 2013. The campaign encourages women to get a checkup before they become pregnant, to help ensure a healthy pregnancy and baby.
Learning more about how medications affect women during pregnancy is also important to improve pregnancy outcomes. FDA encourages women to participate in Pregnancy Exposure Registries. These registries collect health information from women who take medications or get vaccines during pregnancy or while breastfeeding.
To promote healthy pregnancy and provide information about infant care, HHS entered into a public-private partnership to help launch text4baby in 2010.5 This mobile information service provides free text messages to pregnant women and new moms to help keep them safe and healthy. In 2012, CMS, HRSA, and ACF began the Strong Start initiative to help reduce early births and to improve outcomes for moms and babies.
Because of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, health insurance companies cannot deny women coverage, or charge them more, due to pre-existing health conditions, including a pregnancy.6The Affordable Care Act also requires insurance companies to cover, with no cost-sharing, many preventive services for pregnant women. Under the Affordable Care Act, maternity and newborn care is an essential health benefit that must be covered by all plans in the Marketplace.
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Read more about the HHS offices and agencies included in this section.
All material contained on these pages are free of copyright restrictions and may be copied, reproduced, or duplicated without permission of the Office on Women’s Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Citation of the source is appreciated.
Page last updated: April 01, 2019.
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A federal government website managed by the Office on Women's Health in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, DC 20201
1-800-994-9662 • Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET (closed on federal holidays).
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