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.”

Relevant Links

CDC’s Report on Maternal Mortality 

JAMA Articles on trends in maternal mortality:

• https://edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/audio-player/18796651
• https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2806661?utm_source=podcast_platforms&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=related_article_links

Summary of JAMA webinar on maternal mortality

Op-Ed: How We Can Reimagine Black Maternal Health in the Changed Landscape of Dobbs

Centering the health of mothers

To Prevent Women from Dying in Childbirth First Stop Blaming Them

About Our Guest

Monica McLemore is a preeminent scholar of antiracist birth equity research, community-informed methods, and policy translation. Dr. McLemore is a Professor in the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from The College of New Jersey in 1993 after declaring at eight years old that she would become a nurse. She has a Master’s in Public Health from San Francisco State University and a PhD in Oncology Genomics at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s worked her entire career in reproductive health, rights, and justice. Monica retired from active clinical practice after a 28-year career and was awarded tenure in 2019. Monica’s  research findings have been widely cited and her writings work synergistically to allow her thoughts, ideas, and strategies to design and test interventions to advance reproductive justice for all.

Connect With Us

For more information on The Other 80 please visit our website - www.theother80.com. To connect with our team, please email [email protected] and follow us on twitter @claudiawilliams and LinkedIn.