[ad_1]
Giving birth to a child is supposed to be one of the happiest moments in a parent’s life, but for many Black women in America, childbirth can be deadly. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, death from pregnancy-related complications has gone up in recent years, from 861 deaths in 2020, to 1,205 deaths in 2021.
Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It has actively gotten more dangerous in the United States for women to give birth in our country. And that should never be the case,” said Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill. “My entire lifetime, we’ve had this disparity where black women are three to four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than their white counterparts. But it’s not something wrong with us, right? There’s no genetic issue or there’s something about black women where we can’t survive childbirth, absolutely not. This is about what’s going on in our health care system and the lack of providers.”
Underwood began working to address the Black maternal mortality rate shortly after her election in 2019. She teamed up with Rep. Alma Adams from North Carolina to launch the Black Maternal Health Caucus. And while the women come from different generations (“I’m old enough to be her grandmother,” Adams joked), Black maternal health is a cause that’s deeply personal for both.
Underwood received training as a registered nurse and worked with the Department of Health and Human Services before running for Congress. But she says what really opened her eyes to the issue of maternal mortality was the death of her friend Shalon Irving, who died three weeks after delivering a baby girl.
“It was devastating,” she said. “And I knew that in Congress, this would be an issue that I wanted to work on.”
Adams’ inspiration to work on was driven by a member of her own family. Her daughter experienced preeclampsia while giving birth 18 years ago, and Adams says her daughter’s pain was ignored, and that a doctor told her to “go home and lay down.”
“We have a lot of insensitivity toward women who look like me,” Adams said.
Experts blame the racial disparity in maternal death rates on everything from bias in the health care system to a lack of equal access to quality care.
Underwood and Adams hope to address all aspects of the maternal health crisis through a package of 13 bills they call the “Momnibus.”
“We have provisions to address social determinants of health, like housing and nutrition, and transportation, environmental conditions like extreme heat and air pollution that the data the biomedical evidence tells us is contributing to maternal death and infant death,” Underwood said.
Included in the “Momnibus” is a bill that would fund community-based organizations working to improve maternal health outcomes.
“These folks have been on the ground working. And they’re the ones who have the ear of the community, the trust,” Adams said.
One such organization is Mamatoto Village, which serves women in Washington, D.C. The center supports women during their pregnancies and into postpartum with a range of services, from childbirth education to lactation consultations.
One of the center’s founders, Aza Nedhari, was inspired to start Mamatoto Village after she gave birth to her first child while in college.
“We found ourselves on this motherhood journey, pretty lonely and needing community meeting women who were navigating motherhood in similar ways,” Nedhari said. “And so this space for us became a sanctuary and a refuge.”
Mamatoto Village also offers a workforce development training program, to help train women for maternal health careers. The center helps women get the training they need to become doulas, perinatal health workers and lactation consultants. Nedhari says she’s also working to develop a midwifery school to help women get professional midwife certification. Nedhari says the wide variety of programs helps the center address a range of community needs.
“We have to address the root causes of what is leading to maternal death, whether that is housing, whether that is safety, education, economics, all of these things that intersect and culminate into the maternal health crisis that we are seeing today,” she said.
“We can’t compel Congress anymore. We can no longer beg for our lives, or beg for our futures,” Nedhari added. “But there has to be that same urgency and will and desire to make it right for black women.”
Adams and Underwood says organizations like Mamatoto Village have helped shape the legislation in the “Momnibus.”
“We’ve had a longstanding disparity with no federal action, none. No funding, no public service announcements, no research,” said Underwood. “Who stepped in the gap? These community-based groups that were on the ground.”
“They’re the ones who have the ear of the community, the trust,” added Adams. “[It’s] important that in order for them to continue to do what they’re doing, to assist in the ways that they have, they do need the resources and support and government.”
Many of the “Momnibus” bills have bipartisan support, but so far only one has been passed.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Adams said. “We have members of Congress who represent both parties, who are concerned about this issue.”
Underwood says the Black Maternal Health Caucus is working to add the “Momnibus” provisions to a federal funding package, or another must-pass bill, and that she hopes to get it signed into law this year.
“We’re looking for legislative vehicles that are moving right. Let’s get this attached to a federal funding package or another must pass bill. So we can get this signed into law this year,” said Underwood. “We’ve secured over $100 million through the appropriations of federal funding process the last time we passed a big federal funding deal, which is a significant amount of Momnibus funds. And so we are working aggressively to repeat that great progress, but really to get the whole package signed into law.”
Both she and Adams are urging people to contact their representatives in Congress, to urge them to support the package.
For more information about organizations supporting Black maternal health, the Black Mamas Matter Alliance has a list of resources on their website.
[ad_2]
Source link
