Black Maternal Health Week 2026 is coming to an end and BWHI was everywhere it needed to be. Underfoot. In the halls of Congress. In community spaces. In honest conversations with the people who do the work every day. This week, we showed up in full, and here’s a look at everything we’ve been up to and why it matters.
We signed. We got up.
BWHI proudly added our name to the 2026 Black Maternal Health Week resolution, led by Representative Alma Adams, Representative Lauren Underwood, and Senator Cory Booker, calling on Congress to stop treating Black maternal health as a talking point and start treating it like the crisis it is. We also participated in the Black Mamas Matter Alliance community block party and walk, standing alongside the decade-long Black Mamas Matter movement.
As Dr. Ifeoma Udoh, Executive Vice President of Policy and Research: “All Black mothers and families deserve safe and joyful pregnancy and postpartum experiences. We stand proudly with the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, whose leadership is leading Black Maternal Health Week, as a call to action to address the structural and social conditions of Black health. Week, we focus on justice and joy and continue to we urge federal and state congressional leaders to commit to the comprehensive solutions outlined in the Momnibus Act.”
This is not a press release. This is a commitment we have lived by for more than 40 years.
On Capitol Hill with Congresswoman Robin Kelly
This week, BWHI President and CEO Joy D. Calloway, MBA, MHSA stood on Capitol Hill alongside Congresswoman Robin Kelly to sound the alarm about black maternal health. The press conference highlighted two critical pieces of legislation: the CARE for Moms Act and the WELLS Act, both of which reflect the kind of comprehensive, justice-focused politics that BWHI has championed for decades.
Joy’s message was clear and grounded. Black women continue to die at rates that are unacceptable and preventable. A healthy pregnancy does not begin at conception. It begins with a woman who has been taken care of all her life. BWHI’s policy priorities have always focused on access to high-quality maternal care, a strong perinatal workforce, and the prevention of chronic disease across the lifespan. That hasn’t changed, and neither has our commitment to fight for it in every room we’re called into and every room we have to push our way into.
The conversation we had with birth in color
BWHI Senior Policy Director Candace Bond-Theriault sat down with Kenda Denia, Founder and Executive Director of Birth In Color, and Dana Williams, Senior Program Director, for a real conversation about what it really takes to change Black maternal health outcomes.
Kenta cleared up something that doesn’t get said enough. Black maternal mortality data cut across education and income levels. “When you look at the statistics and the data, you see that women with higher education are dying at a higher rate than people with a high school diploma. And that’s why we really need to hold people accountable.”
The discussion also touched on the critical and often overlooked role of the doula and how community-based support is not a luxury. It’s infrastructure. Dana spoke about the importance of retaining this workforce: “To truly support our doulas, we need policies that value and sustain this workforce. That would include fair Medicaid reimbursements for doulas, access to mental health care.”
This week’s annual Birth In Color Summit brought together policymakers, clinicians and community members to talk about accountability, data and community-driven solutions that are already working.
Candace, who attended in person, reflected on what the collaboration means: “I’ve been privileged to be fully immersed in bread-and-butter kitchen table conversations about Black maternal health. As a Virginian and a Black mother who recently gave birth to my two beautiful children, these important conversations transcend politics and hit home.”
Why Georgia’s midwifery education is a dark story for maternal health
One of the most powerful conversations we had this week was with Jamarah Amani, a licensed midwife, birth justice advocate, and co-founder of the National Black Midwives Alliance. Jamara waited 18 years for Georgia to change its laws. This year, he stopped waiting.
Her origin story is personal and political. When she gave birth to her second child in Georgia, maternity care was unaffordable and unaffordable, so she went through the Medicaid system and ended up in a hospital where her autonomy was taken away. “Being denied freedom of movement made me feel more like a prisoner than a patient. I certainly didn’t feel cared for. I felt like I had to struggle through my labor.”
That experience, combined with a lifetime of reproductive justice activism, became the foundation of her calling. She trained in Florida because Georgia law gave her no choice, and now she’s bringing that fight back home. On April 2, she filed Amani v. Georgia along with two other midwives, backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, challenging some of the most restrictive midwifery laws in the country.
But Jamara didn’t stop at the trial. He gave us history. And it’s a story every Black woman deserves to know.
Black midwives have been the primary pregnancy care providers for most of this country’s history, serving black, white and Indigenous families. In Florida alone, at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 4,000 registered midwives, and 98% of them were black. Then followed a deliberate campaign to dismember them. Beginning in 1857, the American Medical Association launched what Jamara calls “a racist and sexist campaign to discredit black midwives,” and by 1921, requiring a nursing degree effectively pushed out an entire workforce that had been barred from the same schools because of segregation. Georgia’s laws today are a continuation of that legacy, and that’s exactly why Jamara is taking the state to court. “We deserve the right to claim what was stolen from us.”
We will continue to follow this lawsuit and the women seeking change in Georgia. Read more
The Work Continues
This week was Black Maternal Health Week. But this task has no deadline. BWHI’s policy and research team are deep into it every day. Our partnerships with organizations like BMMA, Birth In Color and supporters like Jamarah Amani are not one-week partnerships. They are part of a long-term movement to ensure that black mothers feel safe, seen and able to come home to their babies.
This is the world we are building. And we are not building it alone.
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