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Statement

Shocking Rise in Maternal Mortality, With Black Moms at Greatest Risk, Underscores Need for Congress to Pass Momnibus Act and Secure Access to Abortion Care

March 17, 2023
Maternal Health

Lisa Lederer, 202/371-1996

Statement of leaders of MomsRising, the online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families, on the National Center for Health Statistics data released yesterday, showing a dramatic rise in maternal mortality and disparities in the United States in 2021:

“This is an emergency. Too many moms are losing their lives during pregnancy and childbirth in this country. Our nation’s maternal health crisis got appreciably worse in 2021, with huge disparities and Black women suffering the worst outcomes. Data released yesterday by the National Center for Health Statistics/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 1,205 women died of maternal causes in the United States in 2021, up sharply from 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019. (Those deaths are among women who were pregnant or had been pregnant within the last 42 days, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.) The maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic white women.

“It is appalling that our already-high maternal mortality rate is getting worse, as are the disparities. It’s long past time lawmakers recognize this as the emergency that it is. The Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act will soon be reintroduced in both chambers of Congress, and its passage should be an immediate priority so we can provide more funds to strengthen federal maternal health programs, address social determinants of health, support diversification of the perinatal health workforce, provide grants to improve maternal mental health, support anti-bias trainings for health care professionals, and more.”

-Statement of Monifa Bandele, Chief Strategy Officer, MomsRising

“Certainly COVID is part of the reason maternal health outcomes in the United States worsened in 2021, but we had the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation before the pandemic struck. Enactment of the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which will save lives and improve the health of mothers and babies, is long overdue.

“But there is more we need lawmakers to do. The shameful SCOTUS ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the state abortion bans and restrictions it allowed are sure to exacerbate our already-devastating maternal health crisis. They have resulted in women being denied not just abortion care but also birth control, care for miscarriages, medications they need and have long taken, and other essential services. Low-income women and moms, women of color, young, rural and immigrant women, people with disabilities, and those who are LGBTQIA+ are suffering the most.

“America’s moms call on lawmakers at every level to prioritize maternal health and secure access to abortion care. Improving women’s health and addressing our maternal health crisis should be our highest priority.”

-Statement of Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and CEO, MomsRising

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MomsRising.org is an on-the-ground and online grassroots organization of more than a million people who are working to increase family economic security, decrease discrimination against women and moms, and to build a nation where businesses and families can thrive. Established in 2006, MomsRising and its members are organizing and speaking out to improve public policy and to change the national dialogue on issues that are critically important to America’s families, including criminal justice reform, immigration policy reform, and gun safety. MomsRising is working for paid family and medical leave, affordable, high quality childcare and early learning, and for an end to the wage and hiring discrimination which penalizes women — particularly moms and women of color — and so many others. MomsRising advocates for access to healthy food for all kids, health care for all, earned sick days, and breastfeeding rights so that all children can have a healthy start. MomsRising maintains a Spanish language website: MamásConPoder.org. Sign up online at www.MomsRising.org — and follow us on our blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.