In 2023, the US maternal mortality rate was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women, compared with 14.5 for white women and 12.4 for Hispanic women, according to the CDC. That year the overall rate fell, but the rate for Black women rose slightly. CDC review committees found that about 84% of pregnancy-related deaths from 2017 to 2019 were preventable.
The gap holds across income and education levels, which points to systems rather than individual choices. Contributing factors include hospitals in Black neighborhoods with fewer resources, gaps in insurance coverage after birth, chronic stress from racism, and clinicians who dismiss Black women's reports of pain or symptoms.
Responses include extending Medicaid coverage to a full year after birth, funding Black-led doula and midwife programs, and requiring bias training and data reporting in hospitals. The movement frames maternal health as part of reproductive justice: the right to have children and to survive giving birth.