The pending state budget for Ohio includes cross-agency investments to improve maternal and infant health. Maternal and infant health rates are still unacceptably high, and these proposed investments are urgently needed to prevent deaths and ensure birthing parents and babies get needed support. Budget initiatives across four governmental entities relate to infant and maternal health: the Department of Children and Youth (DCY), the Ohio Department of Health (ODH), and the Ohio Commission on Minority Health (OCMH). Their recommended budgets would support a range of activities from addressing the social drivers of health to supporting the perinatal workforce. And while it is not covered here directly, the Ohio Department of Medicaid plays a significant role in supporting the health and well-being of parents and babies in Ohio. Medicaid pays for 40 percent of all births in the state of Ohio.
Department of Children and Youth's plans for infant and maternal health
DCY is the newest state agency and was created with a focus on children. Much of the state’s infant and maternal health programs are now housed in DCY. To offer more insight into each state agency, board and commission and the related budgeting details, the Legislative Service Commission produces what are known as Redbooks. DCY’s Redbook explains various strategies to help birthing parents and babies. The agency’s budget includes $500,000 to be allocated for each fiscal year to Maternal and Infant Housing Assistance (from the state’s General Revenue Fund), which supports stable housing initiatives for pregnant individuals and to enhance infant and maternal health outcomes. Also, DCY supports the governor’s plans for the Maternal and Child Block Grant to be flat funded for FY 2026 and FY 2027. Provided by the federal government, the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant is used to enhance access to infant, maternal, and early childhood health and wellness. The funds can be used for clinical strategies, community-based grants, and safe sleep awareness and education activities.
Help Me Grow is a state-funded home visiting program that offers parenting education, maternal health and wellness screenings, child and development screenings, and referrals to medical and social supports. The program also connects children to a development-enhancing program or early childcare provider. Expectant, first-time parents, or parents who are at highest risk for poor child outcomes are eligible for this program. The DCY budget includes $63.6 million for FY 2026 and $85.5 million for FY 2027 to disperse funds in the form of contracts, grants, agreements, or subsidies to counties operating the program. In addition, funding can be used to support workforce recruitment and retention and data collection efforts through the Ohio Comprehensive Home Visiting Integrated System.
One million dollars is earmarked for residential infant care centers to conduct nonmedical services.
Infant Vitality supports community and local faith-based service providers that invest in maternal health programs, offers services and support to pregnant mothers, and enhances infant and maternal health outcomes. The funding source for Infant Vitality is the state’s General Revenue Fund. The DCY Redbook includes $22 million for FY 2026 (a 31.1 percent increase compared to FY 2025) and $22.1 million for FY 2027. The reason behind the increased funding for this line item is that the earmark amounts for community and local faith-based service providers have been increased; $7.5 million dollars is earmarked for both community and local faith-based service providers for each fiscal year, 2026 and 2027. One million dollars is earmarked for residential infant care centers to conduct nonmedical services. The remaining funds in Infant Vitality can be used for population approaches to address infant mortality. This includes supporting data collection, increasing awareness, finding resources where the need is greatest, and executing “quality improvement science and programming that is evidence-based or based on emerging practices.” Some interventions that use this approach include activities related to safe sleep, community health workers, patient navigators, group prenatal care, early childhood home visiting, and care coordination.
How ODH is planning to address infant and maternal health in the budget
The ODH is seeking funds to help birthing parents and their babies improve their lives. One of the line items is Mothers and Children Safety Net Services, which is state funded from the General Revenue Fund. This line item funds child, prenatal, and women’s health services at every level of public health— from direct care, population-based services to infrastructure-based services. ODH is asking for $4.7 million for FY 2026 and $4.7 million for FY 2027 from the General Revenue Fund.
ODH is asking for $4.7 million for FY 2026 and $4.7 million for FY 2027 from the General Revenue Fund.
The Maternal Child Health Block Grant, which is federally funded, is used to address some infant and maternal health concerns. Initiatives include improving access to child and maternal health services to decrease preventable diseases and infant mortality. The Maternal and Child Health Program administered these federal funds for other programs like family planning, perinatal, child and adolescent health, and genetic/sickle cell. ODH lists a nine percent increase in funding for FY 2026 (compared to the FY 2025 estimate) and another increase for FY 2027.
ODH’s Redbook includes funds to support the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). As a federally funded program, WIC provides healthy foods, nutrition and breastfeeding education and support, and health care referral through local agencies to eligible birthing parents. The monthly average number of WIC participants is 178,839. This line item includes funds for the Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program (FMNP). ODH is requesting funds for the WIC Program to have a new information technology system. The FMNP offers coupons to women and children so they can buy fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers markets. Overall, there is a 13.5 percent increase in funding for this line between FY 2025 and FY 2026.
OCMH promotes pathways community hub model to resolve infant mortality
OCMH is seeking funds for Infant Mortality Health Grants. The state-provided funds will be assigned to community-based agencies that will either continue or establish the pathways community hub model. The hub model is a community care approach to decrease overall infant mortality—especially infant mortality in racial and ethnic populations— and reduce preterm births. Grant recipients must improve preterm birth rates and accomplish goals by increasing early access to prenatal health care, offer postpartum visits promptly, improve safe sleep practices, and increase opportunities to receive behavioral health services and other community services that will affect health birth outcomes. The funding amount has slightly decreased between FY 2025 and FY 2026 by 0.2 percent.
Could the as-introduced budget do more to address maternal and infant health?
There are good plans to address infant and maternal health through the state budget, but more could be done. For instance, policies that would move Ohio toward adopting more patient safety bundles could be in the budget. Patient safety bundles provide evidence-informed practices to address clinically specific health conditions in pregnant and postpartum people. Ohio currently has an obstetric hemorrhage safety bundle. However, mental health conditions are a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in Ohio in 2020. This includes overdoses related to depressive disorders and substance use disorders. There are patient safety bundles dedicated to perinatal mental health conditions and substance use disorders, which policy makers should consider adopting and implementing.
Even though WIC is mentioned in the state budget with the intent on improving technology, there are no further details on what the procedure will entail. Currently, WIC in Ohio primarily operates offline. Recipients of WIC must physically attend the WIC clinics to obtain their benefits, which can be a barrier for those without transportation. If the WIC program changes their program to be more technologically friendly, such as scheduling online appointments to get benefits, then more people would have access to use the program.
The state budget continues to move through the legislature
As the state budget cycle continues, The Center for Community Solutions will keep track of changes about infant and maternal health by providing updates.
*Although we use the terms ‘women’ and ‘mothers’ in some cases due to how the state budget was reported, we acknowledge and recognize that not everyone who could carry a pregnancy refers to themselves this way. We respect the identity of all pregnant or birthing people.
