Black Maternal Health Matters. How Philly’s Leaders Are Making Sure Of It

To City Councilwoman Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Black maternal health means something. As she stood before a group of community leaders and maternal health organizations at a breakfast organized by her, she explicitly said so. The breakfast, sponsored by the Maternity Care Coalition, felt more like a family reunion than a gathering before the day’s City Council hearings. Leaders from community organizations such as Once Upon a Preemie, Linked Family, CocoLife Black, and Oshun Family Center broke bread as a joyful preamble to a very busy week for them all. Black Maternal Health Week is April 11th through April 18th and centers the experiences of Black birthing people’s health and wellness. Both are still under threat.

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Black maternal health outcomes across the nation are and have historically been horrific. Black women are still at exponentially higher risk of dying during pregnancy, childbirth, and shortly after birth than any other group of birthing people in the nation. Even worse, updated statistics show that, while outcomes have improved for White, Latina, and Asian women, for Black women, outcomes actually decreased with the mortality rate being 50.3 deaths for every 100,000 births. The vast majority of those deaths were preventable.

In the City of Philadelphia, the numbers don’t fare any better. Black women, who account for over 40% of the city’s births, account for over 70% of the city’s maternal deaths. Again, the majority of those deaths are preventable.

Highlighting the disparities facing Black birthing people in the current political climate presents an extra challenge. With the current administration’s attacks on programs that destroy these harmful racial disparities, funding and support federally to end these disparities has all but evaporated.

But Pennsylvania intends to combat both the Black maternal health crisis and this administration’s ignoring of it. Created in 2023 by Pennsylvania State Representatives Morgan Cephas of Philadelphia, Gina H. Curry of Delaware County, and La’Tasha D. Mayes of Allegheny County, Black Maternal Health Caucus is already making changes across the state. Accessibility to doula services, ongoing efforts to protect reproductive freedom, and legislation to end healthcare deserts are only a few efforts pursued by the caucus under its PA Momnibus Legislation. That is all within the caucus’s first year.

Philadelphia is following suit. “This is going to be even more important in the climate we are in now,” Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson said. Gilmore Richardson has been leading the charge to seek more funding allocated to the community organizations in the city where real change is being made. To her, and to her community, these organizations are key to ultimately eliminating the Black maternal health crisis. It all starts with our community. It all starts with Black Maternal Health Week. “There is value in uplifting Black Maternal Health Week”, Councilwoman Gilmore Richardson says. “That we continue to uplift this week and support birthing people and really be their advocates not only in government, not only in the community, but across the city of Philadelphia.”