03/01/2025

Black maternal health in the United States stands at a crisis point. For decades, research has confirmed what Black birthing individuals, families, and advocates have long known—the U.S. healthcare system is failing Black mothers and babies. Across the country, Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than White women. The disparities are not due to biological differences but to structural racism, implicit bias, and deeply rooted inequities in healthcare access and treatment. The consequences of these disparities are not abstract; they are deeply personal and devastating. Too many Black mothers enter labor rooms filled with anxiety, fearing that their pain will be dismissed, their concerns ignored, and their lives put at unnecessary risk. Too many Black babies take their first breath in a system that offers them a higher chance of being born too soon, too small, or not at all.

And, in the Mississippi Delta tells a story of compounded crisis. Here, maternal health outcomes are not just poor—they are the worst in the country. The maternal mortality rate in the Delta is a staggering 339.5 per 100,000 births, a number that surpasses many developing nations. Black women in Mississippi die from pregnancy-related complications at four times the rate of White women, and a shocking 87.5% of these deaths have been classified as preventable. The region is also a maternity care desert—many counties have no hospitals offering obstetric services, no midwives, and no access to high-quality prenatal care.