It’s the last thing maternal advocates want to hear, but Senior Advisor to the President Elon Musk — the father of 14 — has repeatedly warned that declining birth rates around the world threaten civilization.

Yet under Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), billions in funding for maternal health care, research and community support programs have been cut, leaving health providers scrambling and expectant mothers without critical care.

Sevonna Brown, a Brooklyn-based maternal health advocate and founder of Sanctuary Medicine, had to stop her work almost overnight after DOGE froze more than $2 million in federal funding tied to her initiative.

Echoing Brown’s sentiment is Emilie Rodriguez, co-founder of The Bridge Directory. She underscored the perceived hypocrisy.

“We can’t claim to care about birthrates while defunding the very systems that make pregnancy, birth and parenting safe,” she told Forbes.

While critics say Musk’s policies are removing the safety net from under the very people who are growing the next generation, it can be a more costly initiative in the long run.

Elon Musk, father of 14, warns America needs more babies — and that ‘civilization will disappear’ unless birth rates improve. But DOGE just cut billions for maternal healthcare. What gives?

Cuts without care

On April 1, thousands of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were laid off as part of a policy targeting 10,000 agency-wide jobs. The cuts hit agencies like the FDA, CDC and NIH — the same institutions responsible for overseeing everything from prenatal research to postpartum support.

One former employee told Politico she had carpooled into the office that morning, only to find herself locked out.

“We got completely blindsided this morning,” the staffer told Politico. “People were already on the way to the office when they found out.”

The Trump administration defended the measures, describing them as necessary steps towards streamlining an inefficient bureaucracy. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. emphasized that the goal is to eliminate redundant programs, which the HHS is expected to save $1.8 billion annually.

However, the cuts are being felt nationwide, with studies on maternal health being abandoned. Columbia University’s NY-CHAMP Center of Excellence program planned to enroll 600 participants for 2025, but was only able to fund 21. That was only after they secured private funding due to government funds being frozen. It’s too soon — and the sample size is too small — to tell how much of an impact the loss of funding will have on CHAMP’s studies.

The billion-dollar question

As DOGE cuts funding for maternal care, advocates argue the case for women’s health isn’t just moral — it’s economic.

A study by Women’s Health Access Matters found that $300 million in research across three major diseases could generate $13 billion in economic returns. Experts say government-backed research often lays the foundation for private-sector breakthroughs. Right now, that foundation is cracking.

“Women’s health research is not being invested in at the level of the private sector, ” said Lindsey Miltenberger, the chief advocacy officer at the Society for Women’s Health Research. “Making sure that is prioritized in the federal government is really important for creating that foundational research that can then be picked up by the private sector and commercialized.”

Dr. Uma Reddy, who led the now-underfunded NY-CHAMP study, said her team’s interventions likely saved the government money by helping women avoid serious and costly health crises.

“We can address this,” Reddy told Politico. “We can improve maternal health by preventing these mental health conditions, complications … and improve families and children’s lives, and it’s cost-effective.”