The 2025 Black Maternal Health Week arrives during an interesting time for maternal health in the country.
Folks around the country are gearing up to celebrate “collective action” around improving health outcomes for Black mothers.
The 2025 Black Maternal Health Week (BMHW25), which lasts through Thursday, April 17, kicks off today with the theme “Healing Legacies: Strengthening Black Maternal Health Through Collective Action and Advocacy.”
The theme “emphasizes the power of Black-led perinatal, maternal, and reproductive health organizations to drive systemic change and foster community healing,” according to the organizers’ official website. This year’s theme is also holding space for the continued systemic oppression, “reproductive injustices and health inequities” that disproportionately impact Black mothers and birthing people.
“It emphasizes the need for healing at both individual and community levels while addressing the need for restorative approaches to maternal health care,” reads a statement.
The week, which annually falls during National Minority Health Month, is a campaign founded by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance to raise awareness of and improve the Black maternal health crisis.
BMHW25 arrives as Black mothers are still disproportionately impacted by the nationwide maternal health crisis and experience maternal mortality rates higher than that of any other demographic. In 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, nearly 3.5 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women.
It made headlines when it became clear that the maternal mortality crisis surged during the early days of the pandemic shutdowns, and a new study found that between 2018 and 2022, in particular, the maternal mortality rate spiked. Unfortunately, as the numbers have begun to dip in recent years for certain demographics, Black women remain most at risk.
On the flip side, as 80% of maternal deaths are preventable, Black women are continually seeking out life-saving alternative care like that of doulas and midwives and pushing for culturally competent care.
Kisha Davis, a member of the board of directors at the American Academy of Family Physicians and chief health officer for Montgomery County, Md., speaking to STAT recently, said she has seen progress in diminishing racial disparities in the hospitals within her county at least.
“I saw some really great data from our hospitals and was really encouraged from some of the interventions that they’re doing, and some of them are even starting to see a reversal in that disparity,” she said, adding how there have been initiatives to train clinicians about implicit racial bias, as well as training physicians outside of the OB-GYN specialty to better support mothers.
Organizations like the BirthFUND—which was launched by fashion editor Elaine Welteroth and tennis champion Serena Williams and helps to fund life-saving care like doulas and midwives for parents—have cropped up. Meanwhile, Liberty University in Virginia recently became the first HBCU to offer a doula certification program.
“As we launch this pioneering Doula Certification Program, we are taking a bold step toward transforming Black maternal and infant healthcare in Virginia,” Felicia Cosby, Dean of Virginia Union Technical College, said in a release. “This program is more than training—it is about saving lives, reducing disparities, and empowering communities.”
All this to say, improving Black maternal health will continue to take many different people aiming for the same goal from many different angles.
