In a packed community room in Charlotte’s Optimist Park, mothers, advocates and elected officials laid out a brutal reality on Tuesday: Black women in the United States are roughly three times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy or within a year after giving birth. Most of those deaths, speakers stressed, never had to happen.
The Women’s History Month gathering, titled "Why Are Black Women Dying in Childbirth?", was part of Sarah Stevenson’s weekly forum. The panel featured speakers including Danette McLaurin Glass of the Center for Family and Community Wellness and Rep. Alma Adams. Attendees watched a short video, then listened as women described near-death experiences and care that felt indifferent at best and dismissive at worst, according to WFAE. For several people in the room, the statistics were not abstract. They sounded like their own stories.
The data behind the alarm
The numbers that fueled the discussion are not in dispute. Federal data show just how wide the gap is. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women are about three times as likely as white women to die of pregnancy-related causes. Maternal Mortality Review Committees have found that more than 80% of those deaths were preventable.
Those findings have pushed clinicians and public health officials to focus on catching early warning signs, confronting bias in care and making sure support does not vanish once a baby is born. The message from the forum echoed that research: the system is missing chances to save women, and it is doing so in predictable ways.
Voices from the forum
For Danya Thomas, a mother of four, the crisis is not theoretical. She told the audience about an emergency C-section after a marathon labor that came terrifyingly close to killing her and her baby. "I was very close to death," she said.
Danette McLaurin Glass urged health care providers to treat Black women’s concerns as urgent medical information, not exaggeration. Several attendees nodded and chimed in with similar experiences of symptoms brushed off or pain minimized, according to WFAE. The through line in their accounts was simple: when Black women say something is wrong, they often have to fight to be believed.
Policy pressure and local response
On the policy side, speakers pointed to federal legislation and state-level moves that could start closing the gap if they are fully funded and followed through. The Black Maternal Health Caucus, co-founded by Rep. Alma Adams, has championed a package of bills known as the Momnibus. The proposals would steer money toward community-based programs, workforce development and stronger data collection, according to the Black Maternal Health Caucus.
Closer to home, North Carolina has extended postpartum Medicaid coverage and highlighted maternal-health priorities in recent proclamations and state plans. Officials say those steps help shore up care in the fragile year after childbirth, when complications can still turn deadly, according to the governor’s office.
What organizers and health workers are doing
Health systems and nonprofits in Charlotte are trying to fill the gaps that review committees and grieving families keep pointing out. Care Ring, Novant Health and Mecklenburg County brought together hundreds of people at the 2024 Black Maternal Health Conference in Charlotte to share training, resources and front-line experiences, according to Care Ring.
State review committees have repeatedly flagged mental-health conditions, substance use and discrimination as leading contributors to pregnancy-related deaths, according to NC Health News. Advocates at the Charlotte forum pressed for more funding and support for doulas, home-visiting programs and other community-based help, along with better data systems that can catch warning signs before a crisis spirals.
By the end of the event, a consensus had formed in the room: the statistics are devastating, but they are not destiny. Speakers argued that prevention is possible if follow-up is timely, patients are believed and systems are held accountable when they are not. Turning those numbers around, they said, will take sustained pressure on leaders at every level, from hospital boards to Capitol Hill.
