According to the Centers for Disease Control, Black women in the United States are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women.
The statistics are worse in Harris County where Black women are three-and-a-half times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts.
On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Houston) announced that $1.4 million from the American Rescue Plan Act will go to Harris County Public Health to combat Black maternal mortality.
“I could have— met death,” mother Debra Walker said.
Walker says while giving birth to her son in 1981, the doctor had her push so hard that she ruptured an artery. After he delivered her son, she sat in isolation.
“Bleeding internally,” she said.
A nurse eventually noticed something was wrong and called a code blue.
“They had to rush me back to surgery,” Walker recalled.
She survived— but decades later lived through a similar trauma again with her daughter.
“They sometimes think Black women, we can bare the pain,” she said.
According to data released by the CDC in March, the United States continues to have the highest rate of maternal mortality— it rose 40 percent from 2020. It also found 90 percent of the deaths were preventable and Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted.
“There are higher pregnancy-related mortality risks for Black women and Black mothers in Harris County,” Representative Fletcher said.
Fletcher says the $1.4 million is federal funding and will go towards Harris County Public Health’s Access Program, which will provide 300 Harris County mothers with wrap-around care, including transportation, educational information, home visits, and more prenatal care.
“It’s not just those medical factors that contribute to the mortality rates. It’s also the social factors, the environmental factors,” Barbie Robinson, executive director of Harris County Public Health said.
Walker now spends her days advocating for other mothers while serving as the Board President of the Texas Organizing Project Education Fund.
“Rebuild the system, repurpose the system. That’s what we need to see moving forward,” Walker said.
SEE ALSO: Black Maternal Health Week shines spotlight on inequities affecting pregnant women
Black mothers, babies at increased risk for complications and premature birth in Harris County