Black women in the US are 3-4 times more likely to die than white women from a pregnancy-related cause and overall the US has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. These deaths are preventable.

Dr. Monica McLemore, a Professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing, says we should stop blaming women for their own deaths and instead address the underlying social and healthcare drivers that impact pregnancy outcomes. In other words, we need to focus on the other 80.

We discuss:

• The Momnibus, a comprehensive legislative package to improve maternal health in the US which has still not been passed into law

• How disruptive periods, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Dobbs, provide opportunities to re-imagine maternal and child health in the US

• Why community-centered research is essential for improving health equity

Monica says we need to change our views on scientific evidence: 

“There is no way we're going to get … changes in health outcomes at a population level if you don't bring the social and the clinical together, it's just not happening. And so that requires a change in mindset of the scientific community about what is evidence, who generates evidence, who can contribute to evidence, what evidence is needed and what methods are we going to use to obtain said evidence? Because community is over extraction. They are over participating in studies and not getting anything back. They are over funding science as taxpayers and not being able to access it.”