such as pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, and low birth weight. Furthermore, a woman’s oral health during pregnancy is a good predictor of her newborn’s oral health, and since mothers can unintentionally spread oral bacteria to their babies, putting their children at higher risk for tooth decay, prevention efforts should happen even before children are born, as a matter of pre-pregnancy health and prenatal care during pregnancy. (10) The United States has not been able to submit a formal maternal mortality rate to international data repositories since 2007. Thus, no official maternal mortality rate exists for the United States. There can be no maternal mortality rate without streamlining maternal mortality-related data from the State level and extrapolating such data to the Federal level. (11) In the United States, death reporting and analysis is a State function rather than a Federal process. States report all deaths—including maternal deaths—on a semi-voluntary basis, without standardization across States. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has the capacity and system for collecting death-related data based on death certificates, these data are not sufficiently reported by States in an organized and standard format across States such that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is able to identify causes of maternal death and best practices for the prevention of such death. (12) Vital statistics systems often underestimate maternal mortality and are insufficient data sources from which to derive a full scope of medical and social determinant factors contributing to maternal deaths. While the addition of pregnancy checkboxes on death certificates since 2003 have likely improved States’ abilities to identify pregnancy-related deaths, they are not generally completed by obstetrical providers or persons trained to recognize pregnancy-related mortality. Thus, these vital forms may be missing information or may capture inconsistent data. Due to varying maternal mortality-related analyses, lack