In December, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted the first federal Maternal Health Day of Action at the White House, where she issued a call to improve health outcomes for parents and infants in the U.S. Months later, she is still using the vice presidential bully pulpit to push for policy and structural changes aimed at saving lives.
“In our nation, we are looking at the fact that more women are facing death because of childbirth than in any other developed nation,” Harris told journalists during a call on Thursday during Black Maternal Health Week. “We are looking at the likelihood that Black women are three times more likely to die in connection with childbirth, that Native women are twice as likely to die, that rural women are one and a half times more likely to die.”
Black Maternal Health Week is an education and advocacy campaign founded and led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance that is observed each April. The White House officially recognized the designated week in 2021, and President Joe Biden issued a proclamation for it this year.
