(Illinois Department of Public Health Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Report 2018).
You can help increase the availability and accessibility of person-centered maternity care that is evidence-based and responsive to the needs of African-American and Black families.
Join the mailing listLearn about Obstetric RacismHolistic Birth Collective’s work confronts health inequity related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the first year postpartum. HBC is a disruptive force in the “maternal-child health” space that educates, agitates, and organizes to shift the power to maintain health towards communities rather than state-run institutions. We work in solidarity with Illinois’s radical Black birth worker community and commit to amplify their power through administrative advocacy. HBC’s data activism challenges public health departments to move beyond intrusive surveillance of atomized “risk factors” and instead interrogate racist harm and gender-based violence embedded within our healthcare delivery system. We collaborate with partners in the clinical and public health sectors to build the infrastructures necessary to make safe, trauma-informed, dignifying maternity care the norm so that our healthcare system equitably maintains the safety, dignity, and joy of all pregnant and birthing families.
Our current priorities are to increase access and availability of midwife-led continuity of care models among unjustly served communities, to grow the number and racial diversity of Certified Professional Midwives in Illinois, and to raise awareness about obstetric racism.
Core strategies: Data Activism, Radical Innovation to Reimagine Perinatal Healthcare Delivery, Design Justice Praxis, and Administrative Advocacy
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