III
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. RES. 128
Recognizing March 14, 2025, as ‘‘Black Midwives Day’’ and the longstanding
and invaluable contributions of Black midwives to maternal and infant
health in the United States.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
MARCH14, 2025
Mr. B
OOKERsubmitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
RESOLUTION
Recognizing March 14, 2025, as ‘‘Black Midwives Day’’ and
the longstanding and invaluable contributions of Black
midwives to maternal and infant health in the United
States.
Whereas recognizing March 14, 2025, as ‘‘Black Midwives
Day’’ underscores the importance of midwifery in helping
to achieve better maternal health outcomes by addressing
fundamental gaps in access to high-quality care and mul-
tiple aspects of well-being;
Whereas the Black Midwives Day campaign, founded and led
by the National Black Midwives Alliance in 2023, is a
day of awareness, activism, education, and community
building;
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Whereas March 14, 2025, is intended to increase attention
for the state of Black maternal health in the United
States, the root causes of poor maternal health outcomes,
and for community-driven policy, program, and care solu-
tions;
Whereas the United States is experiencing a maternity care
desert crisis in which 2,200,000 women of childbearing
age live in maternity care deserts where they have no
hospital or birth center offering maternity care, and no
obstetric providers;
Whereas maternity care deserts lead to higher risks of mater-
nal morbidity and mortality as most complications occur
in the postpartum period when birthing people are far
away from their providers;
Whereas midwife-led care has been shown to result in cost
savings, reduced medical interventions, lower cesarean
rates, decreased preterm births, and improved health out-
comes for both mothers and infants;
Whereas midwives provide essential maternal healthcare serv-
ices across diverse settings, including homes, commu-
nities, hospitals, birth centers, clinics, and health units,
ensuring accessibility and continuity of care;
Whereas increasing the number of Black midwives in the
workforce is critical to addressing maternal health dis-
parities, as Black midwives offer culturally competent
care that builds trust, enhances maternal satisfaction,
and improves health outcomes for Black mothers and
their infants;
Whereas incorporating midwives fully into the United States
maternity care system would reduce maternal health dis-
parities and address the maternity care desert crisis;
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Whereas, despite the medicalization of childbirth in the
United States, the maternal mortality rates in the United
States are among the highest in the developed world, in-
creasing rapidly, and disproportionately higher among
Black birthing people;
Whereas Black birthing people in the United States suffer
from life threatening pregnancy complications, known as
‘‘maternal morbidities’’, twice as often as White birthing
people;
Whereas deaths from maternal morbidities have devastating
effects on Black children and families, and the vast ma-
jority of material morbidities are entirely preventable
through assertive efforts to ensure that Black birthing
people have access to information, services, and supports
to make their own health care decisions, particularly
around pregnancy and childbearing;
Whereas, according to the 2023 Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention Report, the maternal mortality rate for
Black women in the United States has continuously in-
creased to 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared
to a decreased rate observed for—
(1) White women, with a rate of 14.5 deaths per
100,000 live births;
(2) Hispanic women, with a rate of 12.4 deaths per
100,000 live births; and
(3) Asian women, with a rate of 10.8 deaths per
100,000 live births;
Whereas the high rates of maternal mortality among Black
birthing people span across income levels, education lev-
els, and socioeconomic statuses;
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Whereas structural racism, gender oppression, and the social
determinants of health inequities experienced by Black
birthing people in the United States significantly con-
tribute to the disproportionately high rates of maternal
mortality and morbidity among Black birthing people;
Whereas Black birthing people are more likely to report expe-
riences of disrespect, abuse, and neglect when birthing in
facility-based settings as compared to White people;
Whereas Black families benefit from access to Black mid-
wives to receive culturally sensitive and congruent care
established through trust and respect, backed with the
wisdom of time-honored techniques and best practices;
Whereas the work and contributions of past and present mid-
wives who have ushered in new life have done so despite
a history fraught with persecution, enslavement, violence,
racism, and the systematic erasure of traditional and lay
Black midwives throughout the 20th century;
Whereas the decimation of midwifery across the southern
United States reduced the numbers of Black midwives
from thousands to dozens in a 50-year period from the
1920s to the 1970s, leaving many communities without
care providers;
Whereas some States have criminalized and suppressed di-
rect-entry midwives, despite rising maternal mortality
rates across the United States;
Whereas the criminalization and overregulation of midwifery
disproportionately impacts Black midwives and birthing
families, exacerbating maternal health disparities and re-
ducing access to culturally competent care;
Whereas the resurgence of Black midwifery is a testament to
the resilience, resistance, and determination of spirit in
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the preservation of healing modalities that are practiced
all over the world;
Whereas the focus on holistic care, which involves caring for
the whole person, family, and community, is what makes
a difference in midwifery;
Whereas midwifery honors the right to bodily autonomy of
the birthing person and can be facilitated at home, in a
birth center, or hospital, and works in tandem with
doulas, community health workers, obstetricians, pediatri-
cians, and other maternal, reproductive, and perinatal
health care providers;
Whereas the Midwifery Model of Care has been proven to
have better pregnancy outcomes through preventing in-
fant mortality and morbidity, lowering preterm births, re-
ducing medical interventions, and providing the birthing
person continuous support;
Whereas, in 2022, the Committee on the Elimination of Ra-
cial Discrimination (referred to in this preamble as
‘‘CERD’’) of the United Nations expressed concerns re-
garding the impact of systemic racism and intersecting
factors on access to comprehensive sexual and reproduc-
tive health services for women, and the limited avail-
ability of culturally sensitive and respectful maternal
health care, particularly for those with low incomes, rural
residents, individuals of African descent, and indigenous
communities;
Whereas CERD recommended that the United States further
develop policies and programs to eliminate racial and eth-
nic disparities in the field of sexual and reproductive
health and rights, while integrating an intersectional and
culturally respectful approach in order to reduce the high
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rates of maternal mortality and morbidity affecting racial
and ethnic minorities, including through midwifery care;
Whereas, in 2023, the Human Rights Committee of the
United Nations expressed similar concerns as CERD and
further recommended that the United States take meas-
ures to remove restrictive and discriminatory legal and
practice barriers to midwifery care, including those af-
fecting Black and indigenous peoples;
Whereas a fair distribution of resources, especially with re-
gard to reproductive health care services, is critical to
closing the racial disparity gap in maternal health out-
comes;
Whereas an investment must be made in robust, quality, and
comprehensive health care for Black birthing people, with
policies that support and promote affordable and holistic
maternal health care that is free from gender and racial
discrimination;
Whereas it is fitting and proper on Black Midwives Day to
recognize the tremendous impact of the human rights, re-
productive justice, and birth justice frameworks have on
protecting and advancing the rights of Black birthing
people;
Whereas Black Midwives Day is an opportunity to acknowl-
edge the fight to end maternal mortality locally and glob-
ally;
Whereas maternal health is intractably linked to infant
health, and the United States infant mortality rate rose
3 percent from a rate of 5.44 infant deaths per 1,000 live
births in 2021 to 5.60 infant deaths per 1,000 live births
in 2022, the largest increase in the infant mortality rate
in 2 decades; and
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Whereas Congress must mitigate the effects of systemic and
structural racism to ensure that all Black people have ac-
cess to midwives, doulas, and other community-based,
culturally matched perinatal health providers: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate— 1
(1) recognizes March 14, 2025, as ‘‘Black Mid-2
wives Day’’; 3
(2) encourages the Federal Government and 4
State and local governments to take proactive meas-5
ures to address racial disparities in maternal health 6
outcomes by supporting initiatives aimed at diversi-7
fying the perinatal workforce, increasing access to 8
culturally congruent maternal health care; 9
(3) commits to collaborating with relevant 10
stakeholders to develop and enact policy solutions 11
that promote health equity, address systemic racism, 12
and support the advancement of Black midwifery; 13
(4) calls for— 14
(A) increased funding for education, train-15
ing, and access to Black preceptors; 16
(B) removing barriers and restrictions to 17
Black preceptors; 18
(C) providing financial pathways to sup-19
port students and preceptors; 20
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(D) mentorship programs that focus on 1
promoting and sustaining Black midwifery; and 2
(E) removing barriers related to accredita-3
tion by recognizing midwives across all training 4
pathways; 5
(5) encourages the Federal Government and 6
State governments to authorize the autonomous 7
practice of all midwives to the full extent of their 8
training; 9
(6) promotes the authorization or reauthoriza-10
tion of funding for TRICARE and Medicaid cov-11
erage of maternity care provided by midwives of all 12
training pathways; 13
(7) encourages the Federal Government and 14
State and local governments to take active steps to 15
destigmatize and decriminalize midwifery pathways 16
in the setting of choice of the pregnant person, in-17
cluding their homes, birth centers, clinics, or health 18
units; and 19
(8) supports and recognizes the longstanding 20
and invaluable contributions of Black midwives to 21
maternal and infant health in the United States. 22
Æ
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