Now that 2020 is in full swing I decided to catch up on the many maternal health and mortality articles that were published during the holiday season. There has been a lot of stellar reporting that you might have missed. I did. Here is a compilation of some of the articles I found the most compelling starting with a wrap-up post, 7 things I learned from spending a year reporting on mothers in Alabama,  by Anna Claire Volle about the excellent year-long reporting she did on mothers in Alabama.  I particularly liked 

Black Maternal Health

[Self] Congresswoman Alma Adams on Why She Co-Founded the Black Maternal Health Caucus: Alma Adams is the congresswoman for my district. I am proud of the bi-partisan work she has been doing to help curb black maternal mortality. In this interview in Self’s Black Maternal Health series, Adams talks about the reasons why she is a co-founder of the Black Maternal Health Caucus.

[NBC News] ‘Extremely alarming’: New report addresses maternal mortality in the U.S.: Taraneh Shirazian, director of Global Women’s Health at NYU’s College of Global Public Health and president of Saving Mothers discusses on Morning Joe how maternal mortality has decreased globally, but in the United States maternal deaths have increased particularly for black moms.

[The Hill] Reproductive revolution: Ending black maternal health inequities in 2020: Tracey Lewis-Elligan, an associate professor & chair of Sociology at DePaul University, details the ways in which black mortality can be decreased starting this year. She highlights some of the work of doulas and midwives in the fight against black maternal mortality.

Native American Maternal Health

[Albuquerque Journal] Editorial: NM at forefront of fighting grim stats on maternal mortality: This editorial highlights the work of doulas with rural populations in New Mexico, especially with Navajo women.

[Navajo Hopi Observer] Native women come together to confront high rates of maternal mortality: 40 Navajo women with no medical background were trained to be doulas recently in Arizona. Indigenous women often say they are left out of the conversation about maternal mortality although they have high numbers of pregnancy-related deaths,

Politics

[Politifact] Yang cites maternal mortality stats to talk about race: In the last Democrat debate in December Andrew Yang mentioned that black women die 320% times higher from childbirth complications. Politifact checks the statistic against recent research.

[Craines] Bloomberg touts plan to improve maternal health: At a recent campaign stop in Alabama Mike Bloomberg presented details about how he would help decrease black maternal mortality through free low-income health insurance, standardizing care, and putting more funding into HBCU medical schools.

Global Maternal Health

[Egypt Independent] Egypt launches presidential initiative on maternal, reproductive health: Egypt’s president announced his initiative to launch 5,300 health facilities across Egypt to improve maternal health outcomes. Additionally, the health facilities will include health screenings for pregnant women to detect and treat genetic and communicable diseases.