Season 4 of the successful video podcast, “Dishing with Patricia,” viewed by over one million constant fans, will launch its Daily Audio Podcast (DAP) on April 3. The guest will be Sundé W. Daniels, MBA, CLC, Managing Director, Center Manager Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
Patricia and Daniels will dish on the crisis of Black maternal health and the Center’s upcoming 7th Annual Conference on Black Maternal Health, which is being held virtually on April 5 and 6.
Maternal health globally is shamefully unacceptably high. In 2020, approximately 287,000 women died. Each day, an estimated 800 women die every two minutes from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.
The deaths of infants are even more staggering. In 2022, 2.3 million children died in the first 20 days of life. There are approximately 6,500 newborn deaths every day, amounting to 47% of all child deaths under the age of 5 years, as stated in a March 2024 report on newborn mortality from the World Health Organization (WHO).
In the U.S. nationwide between 2018-2021, 1,725 Black and Hispanic women died from preventable complications, related to pregnancy and childbirth.
The number of infants that die is always higher than the deaths of mothers worldwide.
In the U.S. nationwide between 2018 and 2021, 39,792 Black and Hispanic infants died of preventable complications, related to pregnancy and childbirth, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This year’s conference theme is “Centering the Role of Technology in Addressing Black Maternal Health Disparities.”
In addition to the conference, on April 6, registered conference attendees will have the opportunity to view the multi-award winning, birthing mother-related documentary, “Black Motherhood Through The Lens,” produced by Adeiyewunmi (Ade) Osinubi, an emergency medicine resident physician at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Center for Black Maternal Health & Reproductive Justice’s conference is usually scheduled one week before the start of the national recognition of Black Maternal Health Week. However, this year’s conference will be held on April 5, preceding Black Maternal Health Week, which will be recognized from April 11-April 17.
Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, Ph.D., MPH, founder and director of the Center for Black Maternal Health & Reproductive Justice, started her career path after experiencing the preventable maternal deaths of two of her dearest friends. After suffering those losses, Amutah-Onukagha knew it was critical for her to be a voice.
“I am a mother,” she said. “I am a Black person. I am a postpartum person. I am a researcher, a scholar, a policy advisor.”
She hopes to bring Black maternal health to the center stage.
It is important to Philadelphians, because the infant mortality rate in Philadelphia is nearly 40% higher than the national rate, and deaths among infants and mothers are not distributed equally. Racial disparities are striking and unjust. Non-Hispanic Black women made up 43% of births in Philadelphia from 2013 to 2018, but accounted for 73% of pregnancy-related deaths, as cited by the City of Philadelphia Department for Public Health.
A. Bruce Crawley, CEO, Millennium3Management (M3M), and the producers of “Dishing with Patricia” were recently invited by committee chair Councilwoman Nina Ahmad, Ph.D. to present testimony before the Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on Public Health and Human Services on March 8 on the topic of Black maternal health, and proposed solutions for addressing the racial disparities in the maternal mortality rate in the City of Philadelphia.
Also presenting testimony on that same topic was Rev. Dr. Lorina Marshall-Blake, president of the Independence Blue Cross Foundation, who recently completed training to become a doula, and Dr. Seun Ross, executive director of Health Equity, Independence Blue Cross.
During the interview, Daniels mentioned the need for assistance from the medical profession, medical schools, healthcare systems, insurance companies and lastly, from policy makers to get involved in this critical issue as follows:
-Increasing access to care,
-Changing the culture of medicine,
-Modifying social determinants of health,
-Addressing specific complications,
-Increasing insurance coverage,
-Change policies and past bills such as: The Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act (“Momnibus”),
H.R. 4995, Maternal Health Quality Improvement Act of 2019,
H & S. 1600, Maternal Care Access and Reducing Emergencies Act,
H.R. 2602, Healthy MOMMIES Act & S. 1343, MOMMIES Act,
H.R. 6137, IMPACT to Save Moms Act of 2020,
H.R. 6165, Data to Save Moms Act of 2020.
It was agreed that community grass root organizations are helping close the gap by offering assistance other than what was available through the traditional route, from prenatal care, birthing, and addressing the need to provide postpartum assistance.
Seventeen percent of deaths occur on the day of delivery; 52% after delivery, or postpartum; 19% of all maternal deaths occur between one and six days postpartum. Twenty-one percent of all maternal deaths are between one and six weeks postpartum, as reported by the Commonwealth Fund.
Although M3M and Dishing with Patricia and none of our staff are doctors, nurses, doulas, midwives or politicians, we believe in using our platforms to bring about awareness and address all injustices facing Black and brown communities.
What affects Black and brown communities should be a concern for all communities in the U.S and around the world. Race and ethnicity should not play a role in how we treat other people. Because of the internet, our world is global, and what affects one country affects another.
In recognition of the awareness that has been brought to the forefront, both M3M and Dishing with Patricia have contributed 50 registrations to the conference. These registrations are being provided to all local foundations, birthing centers, and community health centers, so they can hear about the latest technology being provided to excepted moms, and to see the documentary, “Black Motherhood Through The Lens.”
I reached out to Alexia Doumbouya, the founder of Cocolife.black, who holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership and is certified in Mental Health Awareness and as a postpartum doula.
CocoLife Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) created to help make an even greater impact on the community and global influence.
Their mission is their ministry, and the organization was birthed out of the light and loss experienced by its founder, Alexia Doumbouya, along with friends, family, and others who traveled a similar journey.
If your organization is interested, please send an email to Queen, my assistant, at [email protected], we will get back to you.
Thank you — Patricia
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