Stand in solidarity with the movement to end Black maternal health inequity and injustice. African American maternal morbidity is one of the most alarming health disparities in the United States.
In New Mexico, the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) for all women is 28 deaths per 100,000 live births – higher than the US average. Consistent with national trends, Black and Indigenous women in New Mexico experience worse birth outcomes than their white counterparts. In New Mexico, the number of observed deaths in Black women is four times higher than expected based on the MMR. Black people are only three percent of the population but have the second highest maternal mortality rate in our state.
There’s power in policy.
Black Health New Mexico is the only Black led nonprofit in the state of New Mexico working to address maternal health and reproductive justice. We are a Black woman led, and founded, organization in a state where Black people’s birth outcomes mirror national trends, even though our size in the state is small. In New Mexico, Black babies have the highest ratio of premature birth and the highest ratio of infant mortality. Black women experience the second highest ratio of maternal mortality, second to Indigenous women.
The New Mexico Birth Equity Collaborative (NMBEC) represents an intersectional, multi-ethnic and interdisciplinary group of stakeholders committed to addressing the alarming health disparities in infant and maternal mortality in New Mexico. Our goal is to move the needle on birth inequity in our state, through honest conversations, related policy changes, and clinical practice improvements.
NMBEC centers the voices, leadership, experience and expertise of BIPOC women and birthing people from the communities most impacted. Our stakeholders include clinicians, advocates, community members and community based organizations. In recent years, NMBEC helped to launch New Mexico's Black and Indigenous Maternal Health Policy Coalition.
NMBEC has been active since 2014 and works closely with the New Mexico Department of Health to impact the way that perinatal services are delivered and perinatal policies are improved via a health equity framework that centers communities as experts of their own experiences. We believe that communities, medical professionals, advocates and birthing people must work together to address perinatal issues. We also believe that communities have the solutions to the problems that they are facing and do best when given the resources and systemic access needed to address them.
