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Black women and babies are more likely to die in New Jersey, often from preventable causes, and most people have no idea about the extent of the problem. Our state is among the worst in the nation for this racial gap.
The statistics are alarming: Black women are over four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications in our state than white women – a troubling rate that affects even wealthier Black women.
And a Black baby is three times more likely to die in its first year of life than a white baby, a statistic that’s driven by Black babies born prematurely. If this racial gap were closed, 95 more babies each year would live to see their first birthday. About twice a week, a horrifying tragedy would be averted.
So we’re glad that New Jersey’s First Lady, Tammy Murphy, is leading an effort to address this problem that’s showing real promise – and just got a $60 million shot in the arm in budget negotiations.
More than $30 million of that will go toward a key element of her campaign, a new maternal health center in Trenton, which currently doesn’t have a birthing hospital. This seems like a good investment, although we don’t yet know exactly what the purpose of the building will be.
One idea behind the original bill to create it was to address the lack of birthing options in Trenton; another was to form a think tank to develop solutions to the maternal health crisis in New Jersey. Both of which could help.
The budget also includes funding for other initiatives in Tammy Murphy’s campaign, like $15 million to scale up a successful pilot program that sends nurses into the homes of newborns to check on the mother and baby and connect them to services; or several million dollars for efforts to expand our state’s maternal care providers beyond just OBGYNS.
About $2.5 million, for example, would go toward training midwives – clinicians who care for mothers – and birthing coaches called doulas who advocate for these patients. Another $2.5 million would go toward a loan forgiveness program for doctors and midwives who agree to work for two to four years in medically underserved areas in our state.
Every bit helps. We have to rethink how we invest our money: Currently, nearly all our maternal health care dollars are spent in the brief 24 to 48 hour window around birth, with just a small fraction going to prenatal and postnatal care, according to Atiya Weiss, executive director of the Burke Foundation, which is teaming up with Tammy Murphy to fund pilot programs like one that provided doulas to more than 150 families in Trenton.
Based on data the Foundation compiled from 2019 to 2022, it’s shown promising results: When compared with a similar cohort that did not get doulas, these women had a 79% reduction in preterm births and a 49% decline in low-risk C-sections, she says. The Foundation now plans to partner with a third-party researcher from Brown University to compile and report these outcomes.
Another of its pilot programs championed by Tammy Murphy creates peer groups of 8 to 10 pregnant women with the same provider who meet regularly and help support each other’s good health. “We have seen this program be incredibly effective in terms of improving outcomes – reducing preterm birth and reducing C-sections, and increasing breastfeeding rates,” Weiss said.
There have been some promising improvements statewide too, since Murphy first launched her campaign in 2019: New Jersey’s birthing centers have shown a reduction in the rates of potentially deadly bleeding incidents and unnecessary cesarean sections that can lead to complications.
Advocates say the Murphys are also planning to highlight this issue at the National Governors Association, where Phil Murphy is chairman – which plans to meet next week in Atlantic City. They are helping to develop a playbook with policy recommendations on maternal health to share with other governors. Great.
We’ve seen a range of theories on the root causes of this racial gap: Black women get lower quality prenatal or postpartum care; they deliver in hospitals with higher rates of severe complications or have unnecessary cesarean births that carry risk; and they are subjected to implicit racial bias, which leads clinicians to dismiss their symptoms.
There are also underlying health differences, with Black mothers more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, which can contribute to pregnancy complications.
Few are aware that just being a Black mother puts you at risk, Dr. Damali Campbell-Oparaji, an African-American OBGYN who serves on a board that reviews maternal deaths in New Jersey, told us when Tammy Murphy first launched this campaign.
“They’re dumbfounded by that,” Campbell-Oparaji said of Black mothers who are lawyers or PhDs. “They think, I have a job, go to work, don’t have housing issues, don’t smoke. They’re not even aware they’re still at risk. Are their providers?”
Hopefully, given Tammy Murphy’s efforts, the answer will increasingly be “Yes.”
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