Black and Brown maternal health was not necessarily at the forefront of the election season, but some strides have been made at the city level to address it. The hope is that progress will continue under the new administration with Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
For the last 24 years, the overall rate of maternal mortality has remained steadily high in New York City, and extreme disparities between racial groups persist, according to health department (DOH) data.
From 2011 to 2020, there has been an increase in maternal deaths among Black women. They are still about five times more likely to experience a pregnancy-associated death than whites, based on a DOH report from 2018 to 2022. Hispanic women were about two times more likely to have a maternal death from 2016 to 2020.
“We know that every preventable death, of course, is a tragic failure. We have to act with urgency to prevent any deadly outcome,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who pushed to establish the Maternal Health Steering Committee after the death of Bevorlin Garcia Barrios in 2024. It convened leaders with diverse perspectives in the health field earlier this year.
The steering committee produced 12 City Council bills and resolutions aimed at solving recurring maternal health issues raised in the meetings. This includes Councilmember Jennifer Gutiérrez’s bills 1284-A, 1285-A, and 1001-A; Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers’s Bill 1146-A; Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala’s Bill 1393-A and Resolution 1082-A; Councilmember Chi Ossé’s Resolution 1086-A; Councilmember Lynn Schulman’s Resolution 1087-A; Councilmember Narcisse’s Resolution 1085-A; and Councilmember Tiffany Cabán’s Resolution 64-B.
Adams sponsored two resolutions calling on the state legislature to provide annual increases to Temporary Disability Insurance payments and ensure Medicaid automatically covers the costs of blood pressure monitors for expectant parents.
“From personal experience, I suffer from high blood pressure,” Adams said, “and it is absolutely a silent killer. It runs in my family, and we know also that there are high instances of hypertension during pregnancy, as well as other things. I suffered through gestational diabetes when I was carrying my daughter many years ago. So women of color are susceptible to these health conditions.”
In addition to the legislation, the committee released its first Action Steps report, detailing the city’s systemic issues that lead to poor maternal health outcomes, such as a lack of affordable and culturally competent healthcare, historic disinvestment in hospitals in neighborhoods with mostly Black and Brown residents, lack of language access in hospitals, little mental health treatment for post-partum women, faulty electronic medical record-sharing, the limited role of midwives and doulas in the current hospital system, and the fear of child services being involved.
“We need standardized care across the [NYC Health + Hospitals] system that prioritizes midwifery,” said Assemblymember Phara Souffrant Forrest, a former nurse who worked in the birthing clinics of Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and Woodhull Hospital in Queens. “An OB/GYN obstetrician’s focus is surgery — that’s their specialty, not necessarily birthing a baby.
Forrest recalled that in 2018, as many as 85 “high-risk” pregnant women, mostly Black and Caribbean, would show up daily looking for care and end up waiting long hours during her shifts at Kings County. The midwives available would attend to the “low-risk” pregnancies. Meanwhile, Woodhull seemingly had more midwives on staff. She explained that even a pre-existing condition, like high blood pressure or diabetes, can get a pregnancy labelled high risk at an understaffed hospital, but a different hospital with more resources is able to attend to the patient’s health concerns and pregnancy more easily.
Above all, Adams hopes that the state, City Council, and the incoming mayor are able to work together to keep pushing for better maternal health outcomes and fully funding solutions next year. “What we need for the next mayor and Council to do has to be a pairing of affordability solutions with targeted investments. For example, sustained footing for doulas, midwives, and maternal mental health specialists; also strengthening safety net hospitals serving Black and Brown communities,” said Adams. “And again, I’m going to keep on hammering this, ensuring healthcare covers critical tools, like those blood pressure monitors and other devices that can help women during pregnancy.”
Part of Mamdani’s plan to improve Black maternal health centers on providing new parents with baby baskets, which include free diapers, baby wipes, nursing and post-partum pads, swaddles, baby clothing, and early learning materials, to offset some of the enormous costs they face. This is based on the success of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s pilot program launched back in 2022.
“When Black mothers are more than six times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, and we lose roughly 60 Black mothers each year — that is a public health crisis,” said Dora Pekec, Mamdani’s spokesperson in a statement. “Mayor-elect Mamdani will work with the City Council to expand proven solutions, including providing free baby baskets to new parents, increasing access to doula care, and integrating midwifery models into maternal health settings.”
In addition to delivering on promises to parents, like universal childcare and more funding for public schools, Mamdani has vowed to expand the city’s newborn home visit programs. This would help coordinate postpartum care, integrate midwifery models of care into maternal healthcare settings, increase access to doula care, and ensure adequate services for non-English-speakers during and after pregnancy, according to his team.
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