In recognition of Black Maternal Well being Week, New York Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, members of the Council’s Ladies’s Caucus, maternal well being advocates, and healthcare employees gathered on Thursday, April 19, to underscore the continued urgency for sustained motion to fight maternal mortality.
They outlined State and Metropolis funds priorities to enhance maternal well being. They highlighted the continuing work of the Council’s Maternal Well being Steering Committee to scale back the extreme racial disparities in maternal well being outcomes, notably for Black ladies and birthing people who find themselves six occasions extra prone to die of pregnancy-related causes than white New Yorkers.
Launched following Speaker Adams’ speech in October 2024 declaring maternal mortality as a public well being emergency, the Metropolis Council mentioned the Steering Committee has convened healthcare suppliers, employees, advocates, and elected officers to advance coordinated motion steps, together with a set of state funds priorities.
“Our women-majority Council has taken cost to combat maternal mortality and champion maternal well being – this requires addressing the longstanding financial and racial disparities that make entry to well being care and stability out-of-reach for a lot of low-income, Black ladies, and different ladies of coloration,“ mentioned Speaker Adams.
“Throughout Black Maternal Well being Week, we honor the lives misplaced attributable to pregnancy-related causes with our dedication to ending the general public well being emergency that’s maternal mortality,“ she added. “The Maternal Well being Steering Committee of stakeholders I convened has been onerous at work on this, advocating for state funds priorities that may enhance maternal well being outcomes.
“My Council colleagues and I’ve additionally put forth options for the Metropolis’s funds that Mayor Adams ought to agree with us to incorporate so extra moms don’t lose their lives,“ Speaker Adams continued. “By way of a sustained dedication to beat the a long time of challenges that drive this disaster, we will finish maternal mortality and enhance well being outcomes for Black ladies and different ladies of coloration, who sit on the intersection of our most urgent challenges.
“I thank my Council colleagues and members of the Maternal Well being Steering Committee for his or her continued work to uplift our working households and moms, with out whom there isn’t a life,“ she mentioned.
As we mark the top of Black Maternal Well being Week, we’re reminded of the stark racial disparities in maternal well being outcomes that should be confronted,“ mentioned Deputy Speaker Ayala. “Each lack of life represents a household and a group torn aside from pointless and preventable tragedy.
“This disaster is pushed by inequities within the social determinants of well being, together with poverty and an absence of entry to high quality care, that disproportionately influence low-income communities of coloration like my district in East Harlem and the South Bronx,“ she added. “As chair of the Council’s Committee on Common Welfare and a member of the Council’s Maternal Well being Steering Committee, I do know ending this public well being emergency received’t occur in a single day, however our progress should be sustained within the coming months and years to make sure it turns into a actuality.”
As a part of its work, the Council mentioned the Steering Committee recognized three proposals that it has known as to be included within the adopted Fiscal Yr 2026 New York State funds: S.3359/A.1691 (Sen. Rivera/AM Paulin) – This invoice would require Federally Certified Well being Facilities (FQHCs), also called Group Well being Facilities (CHCs), with Article 28 licensure to be reimbursed in full when conducting companies by way of telehealth, whatever the location of the affected person and supplier; S.172/A.84 (Sen. Ramos/AM Solages) – This invoice would offer for annual will increase of Non permanent Incapacity Insurance coverage (TDI) Advantages from Jan. 1, 2026, by Jan. 1, 2029, to attain parity with Paid Household Depart (PFL), and Maternal Well being Enlargement: The Metropolis Maternal Well being program consists of prenatal and postnatal care companies equivalent to Maternity Toddler Replica program, New child Residence Visiting program, Nurse-Household Partnership, and Common Residence Visiting program.
The Metropolis Council has persistently made maternal well being a prime precedence.
In 2022, the Council handed 11 payments to broaden maternal well being companies, together with establishing a program to coach doulas and supply doula care to residents of marginalized neighborhoods without charge.
Final 12 months, as a part of the third cease of the Council’s Psychological Well being Roadmap, the Council handed a bundle of payments geared toward bettering maternal psychological well being help.
The Metropolis Council mentioned maternal psychological well being situations are the main explanation for maternal mortality in New York Metropolis. The laws consists of efforts to create a pilot program establishing postpartum help teams in every borough.
“The Black maternal mortality charges have greater than doubled during the last 20 years. And in New York Metropolis, Black ladies are 9 occasions extra prone to die throughout childbirth than their white counterparts. With the management of Speaker Adams, my colleagues and I within the Metropolis Council are addressing systemic inequities by laws and funds allocations,“ mentioned Council Member Crystal Hudson, co-chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus (BLAC), who traces her roots to Jamaica.
“By guaranteeing the required info and care is available to moms in want, we are going to put an finish to this public well being disaster,“ added the consultant for the thirty fifth Council District in Brooklyn, which incorporates Crown Heights. “When Black moms thrive, all moms thrive.“
“Black and Brown moms nonetheless face disproportionate and discouraging well being outcomes, confronting a well being system constructed with out their wants in thoughts,“ mentioned Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, co-chair of the Ladies’s Caucus. “If we wish to hold households in NYC, we’ve to fulfill them the place they’re and make NYC the place to lift a household.
“The Ladies’s Caucus and women-majority Council, made up of recent moms, working moms, and grandmothers, has and can proceed to help applications and capital enhancements to alleviate the historic gaps in our maternal healthcare,“ she added.
“NYC Well being + Hospitals appreciated the chance to be part of Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’s Maternal Well being Steering Committee,“ mentioned Wendy Wilcox, MD, Chief Ladies’s Well being Officer, NYC Well being + Hospitals and member of the Maternal Well being Steering Committee.
“With Speaker Adams, we champion offering actionable options to handle the Black maternal well being disaster,“ she added. “Because the nation’s largest public well being system, we offer care in NYC. No exceptions. We’ll proceed to offer culturally responsive, patient-centered care all through being pregnant and the postpartum interval and companion with different stakeholders to appropriate the disparity that exists for Black birthing folks.”
Photograph courtesy Workplace of New York State Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn
Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, the Haitian-American chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Social gathering, mentioned Black Maternal Well being Week, celebrated yearly from April 11 to 17, is “a strong name to motion addressing the alarming disparities in maternal well being outcomes for Black ladies.”
Led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Bichotte Hermelyn, who represents the forty second Meeting District in Brooklyn, mentioned this 12 months’s theme— “Therapeutic Legacies: Strengthening Black Maternal Well being By way of Collective Motion and Advocacy“ — focuses on “each honoring the previous and constructing a more healthy, extra equitable future.
“Black Maternal Well being Week is greater than only a marketing campaign—it’s a motion in direction of justice, fairness, and respect for all Black moms and birthing folks,“ she mentioned.
“We can’t enable the colour of a mom’s pores and skin to find out whether or not she lives or dies throughout childbirth,“ Bichotte Hermelyn added. “Black moms deserve the identical dignity, care, and outcomes as anybody else.”
