Endeavor Health launches study to target C-section rates, disparities in Black birthing patients

Endeavor Health plans to launch a $7 million study to help pregnant patients, especially Black women, be more seen and heard during labor. The goal of the study, called I’M SPEAKING, is to ensure patients have more of a say in what happens during their deliveries and to ultimately reduce unnecessary C-sections and health disparities at hospitals around Illinois. Black patients are more likely to report that their team of providers didn’t listen to them, “or even that the team explicitly violated their requests or bodily autonomy,” according to research included in the I’M SPEAKING proposal. Dr. Ann Borders, an OB-GYN at Endeavor who works with high-risk patients at Evanston Hospital, is one of the lead investigators on the study. “In a busy labor and delivery unit everyone’s focused on safety,” Borders says. “Everyone’s trying to have mom and baby have a safe outcome and have the best experience. But things can get lost.” The idea is to slow doctors and nurses and everyone else down during delivery, to not just provide what that patient needs medically but to do it respectfully and share in the decision making, Borders says. In Illinois, Black women are nearly twice as likely to...