Maternal health specialists, advocates, and researchers nationwide convened for the 9th annual Black Maternal Health Conference in Boston over the weekend, identifying disparities and solutions to address rising risks for Black and brown mothers.
The conference marked the beginning of Black Maternal Health Week’s global observance; over 3,200 people attended virtually and in-person. Hosted by Tufts University’s Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice, the conference is the nation’s largest assembly dedicated to Black maternal health outcomes.
“I feel like this is the civil rights movement of our time,” Kanika Harris, executive director of the National Association to Advance Black Birth and co-director of the film “Listen to Me,” said at a panel discussion after her film was shown at the conference. “It’s kind of exciting in a way when we’re going to look back to this moment and see what we’ve done.”
Longtime specialists in the field like 84-year-old Dr. Vivian Pinn, a former director of the office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health, reflected on changes and points of stagnation in Black maternal health over the past century during her closing keynote presentation.
While 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable, U.S. maternal mortality rates have more than doubled from 1999 to 2019, Pinn told the audience. At the same time, Black women died due to pregnancy-related causes at over three times the rate of white women in 2023, according to the CDC Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System.
Pinn said national policy in the current federal administration is making continued advances in maternal health difficult and advised students and industry stakeholders to be careful in the wording of their research proposals.
“You can’t label anything Black, you can’t label anything minority, you can’t label anything disparities, and you can’t label anything women,” Pinn said in a response to an attendee’s question. “To me, that’s throwing us back to when I was a child and seeing what was happening.”
Researchers and policy specialists at the conference said legislative changes are essential for improving outcomes for Black mothers.
Jamila K. Taylor, president and CEO of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research advocated for the federal adoption of the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, a coalition of 13 bills. A version of the act passed at the state-level in Massachusetts in 2024 and other Momnibus packages have been fully or partially passed in 12 other states as well.
Taylor noted that uplifting women’s health could also have a transformative impact on the U.S. economy. Scaling known interventions in care delivery for mothers could add up to $24.4 billion in GDP to the U.S. economy over the lifetimes of birthing women in 2025, primarily through improved long-term health and workforce participation, according to a 2025 study by the McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility.
Closing healthcare gaps for Black mothers could also save $385 million per year in avoidable health care costs annually, the study noted.
“When women don’t have access to the health care they need it has a negative impact on the economy,” Taylor said. “Women’s health is actually good for the economy.”
Yet, acquiring funding for research initiatives and business ventures related to advancing outcomes in Black maternal health remains a struggle, several speakers noted.
Adaze Enekwechi, CEO of Cayaba Care, a venture-backed maternal health company, pointed to how it can take decades for research to translate into business-oriented solutions.
Enekwechi said investors hold maternal and women’s health businesses to a higher bar than those in other medical fields.
“The burden is much higher in terms of how good you have to be and what you have to prove,” Enekwechi said. “It just makes us better… because we are being forced to be good and we are being forced to develop products and develop services that truly work.”
Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, executive director of the conference and founder of the Center of Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice at Tufts University, said funding plays a key role for advancing outcomes in Black maternal health.
“Funding is necessary to open up this research,” Amutah-Onukagha said in an interview after the conference. “We have to be able to fuel their dreams.”
With 30 speakers over two days of keynote and panel discussions, the conference gave attendees a wider view into the state of the Black maternal health crisis and the opportunity to learn from key figures in the space.
“It’s been nice to see all of these amazing women in the field,” Laura Sabino, a project coordinator at the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality, said in an interview with The Banner. “It’s been an inspiration to me.”
Hannah Verdun, an attendee, said she appreciated the event’s focus on promoting interdisciplinary solutions to maternal health disparities.
“We need to make sure clinicians are informed, no matter what their role in the hospital is,” Verdun said. “Listen to the people you’re working with.”