Black Maternal Health Week: These Groups Are Dedicated To Improving Maternal Health Outcomes For Black Women

H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock / Contributor / Getty Images Every year, Black Maternal Health Week occurs from April 11-17. The Black Mamas Matter Alliance, which leads and founded this campaign, revealed this year’s theme is “‘Our Bodies STILL Belong to Us: Reproductive Justice NOW!’ Widespread restrictions on abortion care access coupled with rising cases of criminalization due to pregnancy loss continue to widen the gaps of adverse maternal and birth outcomes in the U.S.” “More than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States are preventable,” and Black women are disproportionately dying. According to a CDC estimate from 2021, “the maternal mortality rate among Black women was nearly 70 deaths for every 100,000 live births. That is 2.6 times the rate for white women, regardless of income or education.” A recent American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (AJOG) article claimed “that evidence of increased maternal mortality since 1999 may be overstated due to changes in the methodology used by the CDC to count how many people die annually from pregnancy-related causes.” But the CDC has spoken out against these assertions, countering that the AJOG substantially undercounted. But regardless of over- or under-inflation, this crisis becomes even more disturbing when one considers...