Black Maternal Health: A Fight for Change by Kanika A Harris, PhD, MPH

What if the US treated every birth in this country as if the success of the nation depended on it? What if Black mothers and birthing people knew what it felt like to be loved by the country, they spent over 400 hundred years nurturing and building? Tori Bowie, an Olympian athlete, would still be with us to win more gold medals as a national treasure. Epidemiologist Dr. Shalon Irving would have gotten us closer to health equity and been here to travel the world with her six-year-old daughter.  Erica Garner, Eric Garner’s daughter, would be here to achieve police reform.  Every time we lose a mother or birthing person, we lose the vitality of this country. With every birthing person lost, this country becomes weaker.  Our mothers and birthing people are the bedrock of the overall health and economic success of this nation.

By simply centering and trusting Black birthing families, we drastically change the trajectory of this entire country. We end the US maternal mortality crisis. This is not a tall order or a hard ask. Low resourced countries like Cuba and the Maldives drastically slashed their maternal mortality rate by almost 90% by centering the knowledge, care, and needs of the pregnant person and expanding midwifery models of care that focus on connection, trust, and safety.

We can do this, and we are not waiting. Organizations like the Black Women’s Health Imperative, Birth Detroit, Mamatoto, Community of Hope, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, The Birthing Project, Fund II Foundation and many more are making sure that we birth a generation that feels safe, joy, and love. Also films like Listen to Me are promoting a path forward of centering the healing, voice, and rebirth of Black women and birthing families. There is a Shona proverb that says, “even the old woman that can only pinch had a part in winning the war.” That means everyone can do something to end maternal mortality in the US.