MOCS
Making Obstetrics Care Smart
What if the United States was the safest place in the world to have a baby?
The Problem
- The United States has the highest rate of maternal and infant morbidity and mortality of any wealthy country, despite spending more per capita on maternal care.
- This unacceptable status quo is largely the result of a 50-year-old, imprecise tool used during labor and delivery to monitor babies and determine whether they are getting enough oxygen—a tool called the fetal electronic monitor.
- Without reliable data, confusion prevails and it’s tough to make smart, informed decisions. Women end up having unnecessary cesarean sections and babies are born with low oxygen levels, which sometimes cause lifelong complications.
- This confusion leads to the dissolution of trust between patients and the medical system, massive lawsuits, and ultimately can cause medical providers to quit obstetrics, exacerbating the healthcare provider shortage.
The Solution
- The Making Obstetrics Care Smart (MOCS) program aims to address this combination of problems by developing technology to help families and care teams plan for and have safe deliveries.
- Our goal is ambitious: use advanced diagnostics and smart technology to make births safe. The program seeks to generate tools to predict both chronic and acute fetal status and provide the best recommendations for intervention, giving peace of mind to the care providers, mothers, and families making choices for critical labor and delivery care.
- MOCS will develop better ways to track a baby’s status during labor. First, developing a new test that will assess the health of the placenta to understand which patients are at high risk for complications during labor. Second, designing new types of noninvasive, wireless sensors and AI-backed technology to gain real-time information about a baby’s oxygen levels and make smart decisions during delivery.
- If successful, MOCS will enable safe deliveries for all, drastically improving the health of women and children.
Only ARPA-H can...
- Ignite innovation in a field that has been stagnant for 50 years.
- Push past technical challenges that have limited investment in noninvasive fetal monitoring.
- Convene the best researchers and collaborators in labor and delivery, including healthcare providers, hospitals, payers, attorneys, and families.
- Replace iterative improvements with data-driven maternity care that will make every birth safe.
Solicitation
What ARPA-H needs to solve this problem
MOCS invites proposals across two technical areas: assigning risk scores for low fetal oxygen levels; and the development of novel, non-invasive, and wireless monitoring methods to assess that risk. The program expects teams to use new sensors paired with artificial intelligence and machine learning to predict infant status and provide the best recommendations for intervention.
Notice ID: ARPA-H-SOL-26-143
ARPA-H invites interested parties to review the solicitation, which is posted and maintained on SAM.gov. The solicitation outlines the opportunity and its requirements, key dates and deadlines, submission documents and templates, evaluation criteria for submissions, and information on how to apply.
Key Dates:
- Pre-Proposal Discussions (required): Scheduling requests must be submitted via the Ask A Question form in the ARPA-H Solutions Portal by December 19, 2025 at 12:00 PM ET.
- Full Proposal Due: 12:00PM ET on January 21, 2026
Note: Questions about the MOCS solicitation must be submitted no later than January 14, 2026. Please reference the MOCS FAQ page.
Reminder that dates are estimates and subject to change. Please reference the solicitation for the most up-to-date information.
Ready to apply? To submit a Full Proposal, sign-in to the ARPA-H Solutions Portal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Review responses to common questions about this funding opportunity asked by others in the proposer community. You can also ask a question.
Note: Questions must be submitted no later than January 14, 2026.
Proposers' Day
This was an optional event held on December 11, 2025 for the proposer community to learn more about this opportunity.
Please reference the Special Notice (ARPA-H-SN-26-141) for additional details about this event.
Teaming
ARPA-H anticipates that teaming will be necessary to achieve the goals of this program. Prospective performers are encouraged to form teams with varied technical expertise to submit a research proposal.
To facilitate this process, we have created a teaming page where proposers can share their profiles and learn more about other interested parties.
Program Manager
"With today’s technologies, it isn't until after delivery that we can truly tell if a baby was hypoxic. We’re going to raise the standard of care, which will result in more safe, healthy births by providing care teams and patients with actionable data."
