This is Black Maternal Health Week, a week that celebrates the leadership and expertise of Black community-based organizations as the foundation for advancing equity and ensuring transformative, sustainable improvements in Black Maternal Health.
BMHW is founded and led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, a group that advocates, drives research, builds power, and shifts culture for Black maternal health, rights, and justice. The theme for BMHW 2025 is “Strengthening Black Maternal Health Through Collective Action and Advocacy.”
Here’s a link to their toolkit.
NOW members are pushing back against the new threats to Black maternal health resulting from the dramatic changes coming from Washington. But this crisis was already deep.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights,
“The U.S.’s overall maternal mortality rate is already the highest among wealthy nations, at 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023. For Black women, however, the rate reached an alarming 50.3—over two and a half times the national average, and nearly three and a half times the rate for white women.”
NOW members know that for far too long, systemic racism, implicit bias and gaps in healthcare access place Black mothers at an increased risk of complications, poor maternal health outcomes and even death.
Now, the Trump Administration’s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has led to the wholesale removal of maternal health data from government websites and the illegal firing of thousands of staff in charge of priorities such as managing vital maternal health research and responding to safety concerns about infant formula.
Here’s a good rundown of other ways President Trump and Congress are dismantling health care and lifesaving services, from Protect Our Care.
These include looming cuts to Medicaid that could mean hundreds of thousands of pregnant women won’t get the prenatal visits, ultrasounds, and screenings for conditions such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and postpartum depression they’ve come to depend on. More cuts have been proposed that will endanger access to postpartum care that Congress gave states the option to extend for one year—and 49 states took advantage of it! But this coverage could now be taken away.
We know that over 80 percent of maternal deaths are preventable. NOW supports passage of the Momnibus Act, the only legislation in Congress that will comprehensively address America’s maternal health crisis and save moms’ lives.
The Act would provide millions in funding to address every driver of maternal mortality, morbidity, and disparities that influence maternal health outcomes, like housing, transportation and nutrition.
During this Black Maternal Health Week, NOW members join to celebrate the strength of collective action and advocacy to raise awareness, speak out, and take action against a health care system that too often fails Black women.