[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 69 (Monday, April 20, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H2988-H2993]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CELEBRATING BLACK MATERNAL HEALTH
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms.
McClellan of Virginia was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of
the minority leader).
General Leave
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Messmer). Is there objection to the
request of the gentlewoman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to anchor this Special Order
hour on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus in honor of Black
Maternal Health Week.
For the 10th year in a row, the Black Mamas Matter Alliance led Black
Maternal Health Week last week to address the high rates of preventable
maternal mortality among Black women who are more than three times as
likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women.
Black Maternal Health Week focuses on advocacy, community building,
and policy change. This year's theme, Rooted in Justice & Joy,
highlights the need for both systemic change to address racial
disparities and the celebration of Black motherhood and strength.
This Special Order hour is an opportunity for the Congressional Black
Caucus to discuss the ongoing crisis facing our Nation's Black mothers
and to explore solutions to protecting our communities' Black women.
Tonight, I start this Special Order hour with identifying the state
of Black maternal health in our Nation. In a nutshell, we are in
crisis, and the Black maternal health crisis is not just statistics.
Eleven years ago next week, I nearly became one of those statistics
when my daughter and I both nearly died when my placenta ruptured 9
weeks before my due date. I needed an emergency C-section. I had
placenta previa, and because I had health insurance and access to pre-
and postnatal care, I was one of the lucky ones, but too many Black
women in America aren't so lucky. Compared to other high income
countries, the U.S. still has the highest rate of maternal deaths.
In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, the
national maternal mortality rate actually declined, but Black women
were still more than three times as likely as White women to experience
a pregnancy-related death and 87 percent of these deaths were
preventable.
In my own State of Virginia, after significant improvements from peak
deaths in 2021, Virginia's maternal mortality rate got worse in 2023.
We face a complex road ahead as we seek solutions to protect Black
women and families against this loss. The maternal health crisis
connects healthcare with insurance policy, reproductive freedom,
environmental policy, and so much more. These issues don't exist in a
vacuum, and many of them are rooted in decades, I would say, centuries
of inequity.
These issues require a holistic approach to bring down the mortality
rate and save lives, but recent rollbacks at the Federal level risk
deepening this maternal health crisis. Medicaid cuts and the expiration
of the enhanced premium tax credits over the Affordable Care Act have
driven up the cost of maternal care for millions, making this vital
care inaccessible for those unable to pay for it out of pocket.
The Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade caused one in
three women of childbearing years to live in States with abortion bans
or extreme restrictions, and in those States, States with bans, women
are two times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes.
Again, it is not just statistics. We have seen tragic stories of
women like Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, who died suffering
miscarriages awaiting simple procedures that could have saved their
life, but the hospitals weren't sure if they fit within the exceptions
to the ban.
{time} 2030
On top of this, the Trump administration has doubled down on making
it harder to secure justice for Black families and address the maternal
health crisis in Black communities with President Trump's executive
order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, limiting the
Federal Government's ability to enforce hospital accountability for
treatment of Black mothers weeks after the Biden administration reached
a historic settlement agreement to uphold these guidelines and provide
training for hospital staff to address bias.
Under the Trump administration, funding cuts and mass layoffs have
left agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services without
the resources or staff needed to conduct research and implement
policies that save lives. Thousands of datasets that have helped to
identify the maternal mortality factors and track how we are doing with
policies to address them can no longer be accessed.
Now, President Trump wants to go even further, as his proposed budget
for 2027 calls for over $800 million in cuts to maternal and child
health programs at HHS.
The proposal would eliminate many essential programs entirely,
including the Healthy Start program, which serves mothers and infants
in high-risk communities; the maternal mortality review committees; the
Perinatal Quality Collaboratives; and other programs that track
maternal mortality and share solutions for reducing it. This is not
acceptable, and the Congressional Black Caucus will do everything
within our power to oppose this proposed budget.
Mr. Speaker, in the face of these setbacks at the Federal level, we
will continue to push for change. As a member of not only the
Congressional Black Caucus but the Black Maternal Health Caucus, and
especially as a mom who faced that crisis personally, I am fighting
back as we continue to push forward because we cannot afford to wait.
We certainly can't afford to sit back and do nothing.
That is why I am cosponsoring the momnibus, a package of 14 bills
that aims to address the root causes of maternal health challenges,
provide support to mothers, and study how we can build a better system
for every American family in need of care.
The Black Maternal Health Caucus has fought for this legislation for
years. We will not stop until it becomes law. It must become law now.
Our fight remains far from over, but legislators and advocates alike
continue to work toward tangible change to eradicate this Black
maternal health crisis. I am proud to stand and work alongside Members,
like the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Yvette
Clarke.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke).
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from
Virginia, my esteemed colleague Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan,
[[Page H2989]]
for sharing her story and for being so pointed in the ways in which
Black women have been disadvantaged with respect to Black maternal
health and for anchoring this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order
hour.
Good evening. I am Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, chair of the
Congressional Black Caucus, and proudly representing New York's Ninth
Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York.
I rise tonight with my colleagues of the CBC because the state of
Black maternal health in America is not just a public health issue. It
is a moral crisis.
In the wealthiest Nation in the world, American women suffer the
highest rates of maternal mortality. This crisis falls hardest on Black
women. We know the facts. In the United States, Black women are still
three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White
women. The vast majority of complications are preventable with timely,
high-quality care.
Too many families are left grieving. Too many warnings have gone
unheard. Behind every statistic is a name, a story, and a family
forever changed. These stories demand more than sympathy. They demand
action.
These disparities are the outcome of deep inequities in access to
healthcare, structural racism, and a system that too often fails Black
women at every stage of pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery.
These deaths are preventable. Yet, instead of preventing them and
improving maternal health, Republicans are stripping coverage that
mothers rely on, worsening an already deadly crisis. Efforts to
dismantle healthcare, undermine reproductive health services, and strip
away critical protections will continue to disproportionately harm
Black women around our Nation.
Now is the time when we should be building on progress, not
continuing the pattern of neglect and disregard for our health and our
lives. We must continue to invest in community-based care; diversify
the maternal health workforce; address implicit bias in our
healthcare system; and ensure that every woman, no matter her ZIP Code,
has access to quality, affordable care.
The Congressional Black Caucus will continue to fight for policies
that center equity, protect access, and save lives.
Black maternal health is about more than healthcare. It is about
justice. It is about dignity. It is about whether this country is
willing to value Black women the way that we deserve to be valued.
We will not stop until Black mothers are safe, supported, and able to
thrive before, during, and after giving birth.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin
(Ms. Moore).
Ms. MOORE of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for
anchoring this on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, and I thank
her so much for her passionate words and her lived experience.
Unfortunately, her story is not a rare story. It is all too common,
especially for women of color.
As a mother, grandmother of three women, and great-grandmother of
three great-grandbabies, this is really personal to me. I have a real
stake in this fight, which is one of the reasons why I really want to
implore my colleagues to pass the momnibus.
Mr. Speaker, this crisis demands immediate action. Black women, as
you have heard, are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-
related causes than White women. Over 80 percent of these deaths are
preventable.
These are not just data. There is stuff behind there. This is not
done in a vacuum. This is because of the systemic failure of our
healthcare system and its structural failures.
The thing is that the part that irks me so much is the fact that I
said 80 percent. The gentlewoman said that 87 percent of these deaths
are preventable in the wealthiest country in the world.
Mr. Speaker, this is one of the reasons, when I look at our momnibus
and think of all the bills that are in the bill, I think of women being
served at every single phase of their pregnancy. You could look at one
of the initiatives that I have, expanding the perinatal workforce,
really wanting to provide doulas and people to help guide vulnerable
women with vulnerable pregnancies through their pregnancies.
In our momnibus, we are dealing with things like Mrs. Lucy McBath's
Extending WIC for New Moms Act, which would provide WIC support for
postpartum and breastfeeding mothers.
We even have initiatives to intervene in pregnancies that occur with
incarcerated women.
I have an initiative with Senator Baldwin over in the other Chamber
to provide, with no cost-sharing, for women's mental health not only
during the 9 months of pregnancy but for 1 year postpartum. We are
finding that so many of these deaths are occurring because of poor
mental health among Black women without the appropriate interventions
and healthcare.
{time} 2040
Obviously, Mr. Speaker, we can't cut Medicaid at the tune of $1.2
trillion and propose $1.4 billion cuts in WIC for fruits and vegetables
because we know that this is science-backed data that tells us you just
really can't starve a woman during pregnancy and expect good health
outcomes.
So what is missing? What is missing, Mr. Speaker and Madam Convener
of us tonight, is that we just don't have the sense of urgency about
taking care of our children.
As a founding member of the Black Maternal Health Caucus, we have
come up with some commonsense and science- and evidence-based
legislation, like the momnibus, that would truly make America
healthier.
We have a roadmap. The Congressional Black Caucus and the Black
Maternal Health Caucus, we have a roadmap for change. The time for
action, Mr. Speaker, is yesterday, and we must pass the momnibus. Black
mamas can't wait. We know what the solutions are, and we just have to
get to work.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Ms. Underwood).
Ms. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, last week, we marked the 10th Annual
Black Maternal Health Week, a week of action, engagement, and advocacy
with the goal of ending our Nation's maternal health crisis and the
disparities that disproportionately impact Black women.
Moms across America are demanding a comprehensive solution to this
crisis. While it affects moms from every community, of every
demographic, we know that there are significant inequities across
racial and ethnic lines.
Black women die from pregnancy-related complications at three to four
times the rate of their White counterparts, a disparity that exists
across income brackets and education levels.
Personal losses and staggering statistics like these are why 7 years
ago, I cofounded the Black Maternal Health Caucus with my sister and
colleague, Congresswoman Alma Adams.
Today, the Black Maternal Health Caucus is one of the largest
bipartisan caucuses on Capitol Hill. Our flagship legislation, which I
am proud to lead along with Congresswoman Adams, is the momnibus, a
comprehensive package of 14 evidence-based bills designed to address
every clinical and nonclinical factor leading to preventable maternal
mortality, morbidity, and disparities in the United States.
This legislation is designed to solve America's maternal health
crisis and end the disproportionate risks faced by Black women. This is
not a Band-Aid. This is the solution, and Congress must pass it now.
Over the last 7 years, we have made incredible progress on maternal
health and moving the priorities in the momnibus forward. We have
gotten hundreds of millions of dollars signed into law to fund
lifesaving research on maternal health and to support the organizations
nationwide who are putting that knowledge to use on the front lines of
the crisis.
We have even passed the first momnibus bill into law, the Protecting
Moms Who Served Act, which helps our veterans receive the quality
maternal care that they deserve. Yes, these are meaningful steps
forward, but our work is not done.
Moms are dying every single day, and it is time for us to come
together and deliver a comprehensive solution because our moms deserve
better:
Moms like Dr. Janell Green Smith, a nurse-midwife, a DNP, a
professor, and maternal health advocate who we tragically lost in
January to childbirth complications days after delivering her daughter,
Eden. She deserved better.
[[Page H2990]]
Moms like Mercedes Wells, who survived giving birth by the side of
the road minutes after being turned away from a hospital while in
active labor in December. She deserved better.
Moms like Kiara Jones, who was ignored while she sat in active labor,
crying out and doubled over in pain in a hospital waiting room. She
deserved better.
To end this crisis once and for all and to ensure that all moms have
access to the respectful and competent care they deserve, we must pass
the whole momnibus: the comprehensive solution to address maternal
mortality in America. This is a fight that we cannot lose.
Black Maternal Health Week is a reminder that every mom of every
background has a right to a safe pregnancy and postpartum period.
Bringing new life into the world should be a time of celebration, not
fear, not grief.
This year's Black Maternal Healthcare Week theme, Rooted in Justice &
Joy, reflects the incredible resilience of the moms, families, and
advocates who are working every day to make that vision a reality for
women across the country.
As we have the Congressional Black Caucus recognizing Black Maternal
Health Week through this Special Order hour, I am so pleased that we
have the opportunity as a Congress to celebrate the progress we have
made together. However, we also must rededicate ourselves to doing the
work.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio
(Mrs. Sykes).
Mrs. SYKES. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of Black
Maternal Health Week.
A moment to reflect on a reality that should alarm every one of us in
this Chamber: According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Black women are three times more likely to die from a
pregnancy-related cause in this country than White women. That is not a
small disparity. It is a systemic failure.
In my home State of Ohio, the data tells us an even more painful
story. While maternal mortality has risen for all women over time, the
rate for Black mothers has more than doubled from 29.3 to 59.7 deaths
per 1,000 live births.
These are not just numbers on a page. These are mothers who should be
here today. These are families that should not be grieving. These are
children growing up without the care, stability, and the love of the
person who brought them into this world.
Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, enough is enough. Black mothers
deserve to feel safe and supported throughout their pregnancy,
childbirth, and postpartum period. Every mother deserves high-quality,
affordable healthcare. Addressing maternal mortality is not a partisan
issue. It is a human issue.
That is why, long before I came to Congress, I worked on this issue
at the State level. As the minority leader of the Ohio House, I helped
cofound the first Ohio Black Maternal Health Caucus. It was the first
of its kind in the country, because we could not ignore this crisis
unfolding in our communities.
Now, in Congress, I continue that work as a member of the
Congressional Black Maternal Health Caucus and as chair of the
Reproductive Justice Task Force.
However, leadership is not just about titles and task forces. It is
about action. That is why I am an original sponsor of the Black
Maternal Health Momnibus Act--legislation that will save lives by
investing in community care, strengthening the workforce, improving
data, and addressing the root causes of maternal mortality.
It is why I have introduced and supported legislation to protect
access to emergency and labor care under the Emergency Medical
Treatment and Labor Act, better known as EMTALA, ensuring that no woman
is turned away during childbirth and labor.
It is why I fought against the spread of dangerous disinformation
through the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act, because misleading
women during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives has no
place in a healthcare system built on trust and safety.
We must also confront the role that access, or lack thereof, plays in
these healthcare outcomes. In Ohio, Black mothers are more likely to
rely on Medicaid to cover their births. That means decisions, including
the $1 trillion cut to the Medicaid program that Republicans in this
Chamber made as part of the one big, ugly bill, are not abstract budget
choices. These are risks imposed upon real people.
They are decisions about whether these women can see a doctor,
whether they can receive prenatal care, whether complications will be
caught in time, and whether or not they live or die.
In my home State of Ohio, 13 out of 88 counties are considered
maternity care deserts, leaving tens of thousands of women without
reasonable access to obstetric services. Imagine being told you are
bringing a life into this world and then discovering that the nearest
hospital that can safely deliver your baby is hours away. That is a
reality that far too many families face today.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot accept this as normal.
Black maternal health is not just what happens inside of the doctor's
office, because if it were so, we would have figured this out and
solved this crisis decades ago. It is what happens outside of the
hospital: the social determinants of health, the things that are going
on in our communities, education, clean air, clean water, and access to
upward mobility.
{time} 2050
All of these things impact the ability for a woman to conceive and
deliver a baby successfully.
One thing that most people don't seem to know, or maybe they do know
and just don't like to talk about it, is that the leading cause of
death for pregnant women is violence.
A Harvard study said that homicide deaths among pregnant women are
more prevalent than deaths from hypertension, hemorrhage, and sepsis.
And gun violence has been called a health emergency for pregnant women.
So, Mr. Speaker, we can and must do more to protect pregnant women,
not just inside the hospital, not just outside the hospital, but also
within the intimate relationships that oftentimes women find themselves
in creating deadly circumstances in which mothers and babies cannot
live.
Mr. Speaker, we stand on this floor often. We fight about a lot, but
one thing should be very easy: protecting women, protecting babies,
encouraging life and prosperity should not be something that is
challenging or hard for us all to do together.
For that reason, we are here to celebrate Black mothers, honor Black
Maternal Health Week, and ensure that all of our colleagues across the
aisle are supporting the Momnibus Act.
I thank my colleague from the Commonwealth of Virginia for holding
and hosting this Special Order.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, the threat to our hospital OB/GYNs is not
theoretical. Centra Southside in Farmville, Virginia, announced the
closure of its labor and delivery unit, and it ended OB/GYN services at
their Centra Southside Community Hospital on December 19, 2025, citing
a combination of significant financial and operational challenges,
including the recently enacted reductions in healthcare funding and the
Medicaid cuts.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs.
McIver).
Mrs. McIVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Virginia for
yielding.
I rise today to stand alongside my colleagues in honor of Black
Maternal Health Week.
This time is about confronting inequities and downright racism in
maternal care and ending our Nation's maternal health crisis.
Pregnancy should never cause a mother to fear for her life, but this
is a reality for Black women.
We know the statistics far too well. In the United States, Black
women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes
than White women, and in New Jersey, Black women are seven times more
likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women.
The greatest tragedy lies in the fact that 80 percent of these deaths
are preventable. These deaths are rooted in racism.
Many of the Black women in our lives can speak to hospital
experiences where their pain was not taken seriously or their care was
delayed.
[[Page H2991]]
For too long, the experiences and concerns about Black women have
been cast to the side in our healthcare system. Today, they are being
flat-out ignored.
This administration has directed programs to erase words like
``Black'' from funding applications. The question that my colleague
Representative Summer Lee asked the Health and Human Services Secretary
last week demands an answer: How can we solve the Black maternal
mortality crisis, if we can't say the word ``Black''?
The silence is loud and intentional.
With every statistic, there are real human costs behind them, and
when the concerns of Black women are written off, our voices are
erased.
Behind every number is a family impacted forever. We don't want to be
valued with words without that rhetoric being followed up with action.
Black women have been witnessing a coordinated and vicious assault on
the foundations of our freedom and history. And there are moments when
the weight of these disparities feels overwhelming, when the statistics
feel relentless, and the stories feel too familiar.
But I think about the women who came before us, who fought for
dignity in healthcare they were never meant to receive and who insisted
that their lives were worth protecting even when the system said
otherwise.
So along with my CBC colleagues, I will continue to bring attention
to this crisis until our Nation starts to treat it like one. We will
continue to demand action to close the health gap for Black mothers,
expand access to prenatal and postpartum care, and confront the bias
that exists in our hospitals today.
The time for intervention is now. We refuse to wait until another
tragedy is added to the list.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Menefee).
Mr. MENEFEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Commonwealth
of Virginia for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I speak today because Congress must do all it can to end
the disparities in Black maternal health outcomes in this country.
Moriah Ballard was 22 years old, a Houston woman, who was 7 months
pregnant. She was ready. She and her husband had just bought a four-
bedroom house. The nursery was set. The baby shower was planned. They
had clothes, the onesies, and the books, until she went to the hospital
with a headache one day and had some dizziness.
Doctors found her blood pressure was dangerously high. She had
preeclampsia. They transferred her to a larger hospital, one of the
most celebrated medical institutions in the entire country.
Over the next 3 days, her pain became unbearable. Her vision started
to fail. Her blood pressure climbed to an untenable level. She kept
pressing the call light in her room and kept pressing it, but nobody
came. She lost her son in that experience--delivered stillborn. She
woke up from surgery blind in one eye. Doctors later told her they
wished that they had acted sooner.
That Houston woman's story is not a tragedy. It is a pattern.
Across this country, Black women die from pregnancy-related causes at
three times the rate of White women. The CDC tells us that more than 80
percent of those deaths are preventable--not inevitable, but
preventable.
In Texas it is even worse. In my district, it is the worst in the
Nation. Harris County leads this Nation right now in Black maternal
deaths.
From 2016 to 2020, the maternal mortality rate for Black women in
Harris County was 83.4 per 100,000 live births, the highest in the
Nation.
And it is only getting worse.
Harris County's maternal morbidity rate climbed nearly 35 percent
between 2019 and 2024, outpacing the Texas statewide increase every
single year.
This is happening in the shadow of the largest medical complex in the
entire world.
So what do we do about this?
We as a body must act. We pass legislation like the Momnibus Act,
which invests in the full spectrum of solutions that this crisis
demands.
We address the social determinants of health: stable housing,
nutritious food, mental health care. You cannot have a healthy
pregnancy in an unstable life.
We grow the perinatal workforce, so every woman giving birth has
access to a midwife, a doula, a community health worker who looks like
them, who understands their culture, and we extend postpartum coverage
through Medicaid and WIC because a mother's health does not stop
mattering the moment she leaves the delivery room.
Too many Black women walk into a hospital wondering if they will walk
out with an ailment or if they will walk out at all. My wife wondered
that when she was giving birth to our youngest son and her blood
pressure dropped to a dangerous level. I looked her in the eye and saw
not just tears flowing but fear and the question of whether she would
leave that hospital alive at all.
Moriah Ballard wondered that when she pressed the call light, and she
prayed and she prepared herself to die.
No woman should ever have to do that--not in Houston, not in America,
not ever.
This body has the power to change that.
There have been Black women who have been leading this Special Order
hour today, and I wanted to be here to make sure that they knew that
the Black men in this body have their back.
{time} 2100
We are going to do every single thing we can to pass the momnibus act
to end these disparities in maternal health outcomes, and I intend to
make sure that we do so.
Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, when I began, I said that the Black
maternal health crisis was not just about statistics. That is because
behind every statistic is a mom who didn't make it to raise her child.
I want to tell one such story now of Kira Johnson. Kira was already a
mom, a mom to Langston and Charles Jr., and wife to Charles. She was a
Ph.D. student at Pepperdine. On April 12, 2016, she was admitted to
Cedars-Sinai Hospital at about 12:30 p.m. for a routine C-section
delivery. At 2:33 she gave birth to her son Langston. At 3 p.m. Kira
was out of the operating room and was taken to a post-anesthesia care
unit. Shortly before 5 p.m., blood-tinged urine was seen in Kira's
Foley catheter. By 5:24 p.m. Kira's Foley catheter was draining bright,
red blood.
Her doctor was made aware of Kira's situation, but it wasn't until
6:44 p.m. that a surgical emergency CT scan was ordered, but it was
ultimately not performed.
At 11:42 p.m., two physicians were at Kira's bedside and one
performed an ultrasound that found an expanding hematoma and now free
fluid. They recommended taking Kira to surgery to identify the source
of the bleeding, but her physician, Dr. Naim, who was also at the
bedside at this time, wished to continue expectant management at this
time.
By 12:30 a.m., as Kira's condition began to rapidly decline, her
husband, Charles, pleaded for help. Kira was finally taken to surgery
about 12:30 a.m. on April 13, 2016, 10 hours from the time when the
family initially realized that something was wrong.
At 2:22 a.m., during surgery, Kira was found to have three liters of
blood in her abdomen and did not survive the blood loss. She was
pronounced dead at 2:22 a.m. on April 13, 2026. The autopsy stated that
the cause of death was due to hemorrhagic shock due to acute
hemoperitoneum, or massive internal bleeding, post C-section.
Now, Cedars-Sinai Hospital signed an agreement and reached a historic
settlement agreement with the Biden administration's HHS Office for
Civil Rights. It entered into a resolution agreement on January 6,
2025, to take significant steps toward ensuring that no other family
has to go through what Kira's did.
The agreement required Cedars-Sinai to provide training on the
hospital's obstetric hemorrhage management policy, create a pain
management protocol for assessing and managing acute pain for birthing
patients, update guidelines for trial of labor after C-section delivery
and continue to track the vaginal birth after C-section success rate,
administer an online bias reporting tool to document incidents of bias
or suspected bias experienced by patients and the public, require staff
to
[[Page H2992]]
complete respectful care training, and develop and implement a program
to provide doula resources in patients.
A week later, President Trump signed his executive order banning
diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. Because the settlement
agreement promotes diversity and equity efforts and is grounded in
healthcare nondiscrimination protections, it is under risk.
That is just one example of how the actions of the Trump
administration last year is making the maternal health crisis,
particularly for Black women, worse.
I spent a lot of time as a member of the senate in Virginia working
on addressing Black maternal health as a member of the Joint Commission
on Healthcare. Through our maternal mortality review teams, we were
able to track and identify the differences between rates of death of
White women, Black women, and indigenous women, and we found the
reasons were different.
Using national datasets through the Pregnancy Risk Assessment
Monitoring System, or PRAMS, which is an entire CDC team that monitors
risks associated with pregnancy, we were able to determine that, at
least in Virginia, Black women were more likely to die due to
cardiovascular issues, an underlying health issue, before they got
pregnant; whereas, White women were more likely to die from suicide or
drug overdose related to mental health issues.
With those different datasets and understanding these differences, we
were able to focus on policies that addressed the underlying root
causes to eliminate Black maternal deaths for both Black and White
women.
We began to see some progress, but, again, the very team managing
PRAMS and the datasets we were using to identify the root causes and
the differences is now gone. The staff that oversaw the HHS Health
Resources & Services Administration, which is a national maternal
mental health hotline that can help field calls from new moms seeking
mental health support was cut. DOGE canceled funding for several Black
maternal health projects. The Trump administration defunded research
at Morehouse School of Medicine on how to improve the health of Black
pregnant and postpartum women, it cut research on how stress influences
racial and ethnic differences in maternal health outcomes for women
with hypertensive disorders, and it cut studies on uterine fibroids
which disproportionately impact Black women.
It wasn't just HHS and CDC that removed datasets. There was data from
the Census Bureau and the EPA as well as the CDC that were detailing
racial and ethnic data broken out by other factors that helped show
some of the risk factors that led to differences in these underlying
health outcomes and maternal health outcomes.
Without these datasets, how are we going to track the causes which
change over time, put policies in place to address the causes, and then
track to see if those policies are working?
It is very frustrating, again, as someone who nearly bled to death
giving birth to my daughter, that we are not able to address this and
there doesn't seem to be an urgency, as Congresswoman Moore said, to
address these underlying causes.
The Medicaid cuts are going to make it worse. Medicaid finances about
65 percent of births from Black mothers, and these cuts are only going
to increase the disparity in maternal mortality rates and lead to more
deaths as millions of Americans lose their health insurance.
This health insurance is relied upon by pregnant women across the
country for prenatal visits, ultrasounds, screenings for conditions
such as preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and postpartum depression.
It also helps them get annual physicals that will identify
cardiovascular issues.
The President's DEI executive order also makes it more difficult to
address bias in medicine. We have seen medical schools that taught
students for decades that Black people can tolerate more pain, which
led to tragic outcomes. We have heard story after story after story of
women in the hospital who said, after giving birth, that something is
wrong. They were ignored, and something was wrong.
This disparity also occurs in other health areas, but, again, I want
to connect the correlation between heart health and maternal health.
I remember being in a conference discussing the disparity in heart
health where a woman said that she had her first heart attack after she
became a mother. After giving birth, she went home, and she felt odd.
The more she thought about it, she said: I think I am having a heart
attack.
She went to the emergency room, and the doctor said: No, you are not
having a heart attack. You don't meet the risk factors. You are only 36
years old. You have never had a history of heart disease. Come back
later. You are not having a heart attack.
She went home. She was having a heart attack. Fortunately, she was
able to get back to the hospital before she died.
{time} 2110
That is just one example. We have heard many, whether you are Serena
Williams or Kira Johnson, where you know something's wrong, yet the
hospital and the doctors don't listen. That happens more and more to
Black women. We have to do something about it.
You heard today that the Black Maternal Health Caucus has put
forward, under Representative Underwood and Representative Adams'
leadership, the momnibus act.
What is that? It is a comprehensive package of 14 individual bills
that will make critical investments in the social determinants of
health that influence maternal health outcomes, like housing,
transportation, nutrition, and pollution. It will extend WIC
eligibility in the postpartum and breastfeeding periods. It will
provide funding to community-based organizations working to improve
maternal health outcomes and promote equity. It will increase funding
for programs to improve maternal healthcare for veterans; to grow and
diversify the prenatal workforce to ensure that every mom in America
receives maternal healthcare and support from people they trust; to
improve data collection processes and quality measures to better
understand the causes of the maternal health crisis in the United
States and to form solutions to address it; to support moms with
maternal mental health conditions and substance abuse disorders; to
improve maternal healthcare and support for incarcerated moms; to
invest in digital tools to improve maternal health outcomes in
underserved areas, particularly rural areas; to promote innovative
payment models to incentivize high-quality maternal health and
nonclinical support during and after pregnancy; to invest in Federal
programs to address maternal and infant health risk during public
health emergencies; to invest in community-based initiatives to reduce
levels and exposure to climate change-related risks for moms and
babies; to promote maternal vaccinations to protect the health of moms
and babies; and to make critical investments in research to reduce
preventable causes of maternal deaths and improve healthcare for women,
before, during, and after pregnancy.
This bill has 205 House cosponsors and has been endorsed by 313
national organizations across a variety of issues.
We hope that this will be the year, that this 10th anniversary of
Black Maternal Health Month will be the year we make progress. We have
already regressed and can't afford to wait a moment longer.
I would be remiss if I didn't reiterate yet again the importance of
reproductive freedom. When a woman is told, as I was, that if you get
pregnant again, you could die, the decision from that point on--well,
really, the decision at any point of when, whether, and how to get
pregnant should be with her and her partner and whom she wants to have
part of the decision, and not her government.
The decision of what type of contraception to get access to should be
hers and her doctor's. When you reach a certain age, some contraception
is more risky, yet the forms that are best for you, some politicians--
not doctors, politicians--don't think you should have access to them.
These abortion bans that have exceptions for the life of the mother,
we have seen, particularly in Texas and Georgia, that has led to
tragedies,
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where women show up in the midst of a miscarriage, in the midst of
bleeding out, and the hospital has to wonder whether they are close
enough so that they can provide the care that they need, or do they
have to wait until they are septic. Well, once they are septic, it is
probably too late.
These are things that we had been warning about before the Supreme
Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Unfortunately, our warnings have come
true.
We have to think through the impact of when politicians make
decisions about healthcare, and not physicians and patients. It can
have tragic results.
Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Black Maternal
Health Caucus will continue to fight for Black moms everywhere. We will
continue to fight so that we don't need Black Maternal Health Week
anymore. We will continue to fight, Rooted in Justice & Joy, so that no
other mother has to worry, when they get the best news, that it is
going to end tragically. We are here to make sure that it doesn't.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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