A historic Midtown mansion is opening its doors this Saturday for a day built around a stark reality: Michigan mothers, especially Black mothers, are dying and facing preterm births at rates far above the national conversation would suggest. BOLD Women's Health Day returns to BasBlue on Saturday, pairing a free, walk-in community resource fair with a ticketed health summit featuring physicians, a psychologist, and the Flint water crisis whistleblower.
The event is presented by BasBlue and Henry Ford Health, according to a report by MLive. It runs at BasBlue, located at 110 E. Ferry St. in Midtown Detroit, with the free community resource fair open from noon to 5 p.m. and the ticketed health summit running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., per the same outlet. The resource fair requires no ticket, registration, appointment, or BasBlue membership, while the summit costs $80 and includes admission to both the summit and the fair, lunch, a swag bag, and expert-led workshops.
BasBlue itself is a fitting backdrop. The nonprofit occupies a 12,000-square-foot Queen Anne mansion that once housed the Michigan Telephone Co.'s first president and later served as the Your Heritage House children's museum before reopening as a private club in late 2021, according to DBusiness Magazine. Founded in 2021 by Nancy Tellem, the organization runs as a nonprofit foundation designed to promote economic mobility and entrepreneurship for women and non-binary individuals in Southeast Michigan through networking, mentorship, and fellowship grants, according to BasBlue's own account of its mission.
Why the Timing Matters for Michigan Mothers
Ellen Gilchrist said BasBlue built the event to address barriers that make it difficult for women to access health information and resources, per MLive's report. She added that women are navigating growing demands across every part of their lives while their own health moves to the bottom of the list, and that women face a lack of resources, women-specific research, and access to health care.
Those concerns track with recent state and national data. Black mothers in Michigan experienced a maternal mortality rate of 37.1 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2019 and 2023, 2.3 times higher than the rate for white mothers at 15.8 per 100,000, according to an April 2026 report from America's Health Rankings. Black women represent nearly 18% of reproductive-age women in Michigan, with higher concentrations in urban centers like Detroit.
The state's broader maternal and infant health picture is similarly grim. The March of Dimes gave Michigan a D+ grade on its 2025 Report Card after the state's preterm birth rate climbed to 10.7% in 2024, accounting for 10,619 preterm births statewide, according to the March of Dimes. Separately, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has reported that roughly 80 to 90 pregnant or postpartum women die in the state each year, a toll that has prompted statewide surveillance and review programs aimed at identifying preventable factors and equity gaps.
Who's Speaking at the Summit
The ticketed summit's speaker lineup includes Dr. Rose Moten, Carly Britton, Nikki Sapiro Vinckier, and Dr. Mona Hanna, according to MLive's account of the program, and the sessions will cover hormonal and reproductive health, fitness, mental health, and skincare. Britton is affiliated with Diligent Fitness, while Vinckier is an OB-GYN physician assistant and author of “We Deserve More,” a book published in April 2026 that offers practical advocacy strategies and scripts for women facing medical dismissal and gaps in reproductive health care, according to a listing on Wiley.
Dr. Moten is a clinical psychologist with BLOOM Transformation, per MLive's reporting. She relocated her practice to Detroit in 2018 to open the BLOOM Transformation Center in the city's Rivertown district, where she offers traditional psychological counseling alongside integrative practices such as trauma release exercises and sound therapy, operating out of a 120-year-old building along the Detroit Riverwalk, according to the BLOOM Transformation Center.
Dr. Mona Hanna, who MLive identifies as the founder of the pediatric public health initiative at MSU and Hurley Children's Hospital, is also listed as associate dean for public health at Michigan State University. Hanna previously gained international recognition for uncovering lead contamination in Flint's water supply, and in January 2024 she launched Rx Kids through MSU and Hurley Children's Hospital as the nation's first citywide cash allowance program targeting infant poverty and maternal health disparities, according to Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine.
What the Free Fair Offers Without an Appointment
Unlike the summit, the community resource fair is free and open to the public, connecting attendees with local health providers and community organizations and offering free health screenings without requiring a ticket, registration, appointment, or BasBlue membership. Co-presenter Henry Ford Health brings direct outreach capacity to that mission: the health system operates a mobile mammography vehicle equipped with 3D digital tomography technology that delivers low-cost or no-cost breast cancer screenings at community locations across Metro Detroit regardless of a patient's insurance status.
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit also achieved Level IV Maternal Center certification from The Joint Commission in July 2024, the highest level of comprehensive care capability for complicated and high-risk maternal cases. That clinical credential underscores the health system's role as a regional resource for the kind of high-risk pregnancies that state data suggests disproportionately affect Black mothers in Detroit and across Michigan.
The event follows last year's iteration of the women's health summit, which was photographed at a similar gathering, according to MLive's report. Hoodline has previously reported on Michigan's push on menopause workforce equity, part of a broader statewide conversation about women's health access that BOLD Women's Health Day now extends into maternal and reproductive care.
