Member Spotlight: What to Expect Project

By Annie G. Toro, JD, MPH, President and Executive Director of the What to Expect Project

No matter where in the world they live, every expectant mom wants what’s best for their baby: a healthy beginning to a healthy, bright future.

Established in 1997 by its founder, Heidi Murkoff – author of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the What to Expect Project (WTEP) is dedicated to informing, supporting, and empowering moms in need, in the United States and around the world, so they can expect healthier pregnancies, safer deliveries, healthier babies, and healthier futures. 

WTEP harnesses the power and global reach of the What to Expect brand and mobilizes its community of more than 20 million moms to help bring about positive change, particularly on issues that impact moms and families most. We use the latest evidence-based strategies in the fields of health, education, and communication to train health care providers how to recognize if their patients do not understand health messages and to provide them tools and training to overcome these obstacles. 

Tragically and wrongly, too many moms don’t receive the quality, comprehensive, respectful, responsive, supportive, empathetic, and nurturing care they need and deserve.

This July 20th, we will celebrate our 8th annual #BumpDay – a social media advocacy campaign that celebrates healthy pregnancies while raising urgently-needed awareness about maternal deaths and the need for better, more accessible maternal health care. Our goal: to ensure that every mom receives the care and support they need to deliver a healthy start in life and a healthy future for themselves and the baby they love. Last year, WTEP worked with members of Congress to pass a bipartisan resolution commemorating the ideals of #BumpDay and reaffirming the United States’ leadership to end preventable maternal deaths in the United States and across the globe.

From increasing access to doulas, midwives, and other essential health workers, to strengthening health systems’ capacity to prepare and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and future public health emergencies, to reducing preventable maternal mortality and morbidly through working to deliver a continuum of care for all moms, from preconception through postpartum, WTEP works with policymakers and other stakeholders across the political spectrum at the local, state, national, and global level to remove barriers to essential maternal health care and services for our most at-risk moms.  

It takes a village to raise a child. But first, that village must safely deliver a healthy baby…to a healthy mom.

To learn more, please visit: www.whattoexpectproject.org

About WTEP: The What to Expect Project (WTEP) is dedicated to informing, supporting, and empowering moms in need, in the United States and around the world, so they can expect healthier pregnancies, safer deliveries, healthier babies, and healthier futures. At WTEP, we focus on nurturing the nurturers. 

We envision a world where all expecting moms receive the vital, empowering information and the responsive, respectful, culturally appropriate, community-specific care and support they need to plan and safely navigate pregnancy, postpartum and beyond.