An omnibus maternal health bill introduced to the legislature would have overhauled the way our state manages maternal health, marking a remarkable victory amid the public health crises that persist for pregnant and parenting individuals — especially those who are Black and Hispanic. If passed, the bill would have bolstered midwifery services, invested in postpartum depression screenings and removed barriers for essential birth centers to operate.
Unfortunately, it didn’t make it to Gov. Maura Healey’s desk by the end of the legislative session.
As we wait to see how this bill advances during informal sessions into 2025, a mountain of data and anecdotal experiences point to a bleak reality: We are collectively failing mothers of color.
Take Donnette McManus, a single Black mother who found herself in crisis after tragically losing her sister due to childbirth complications in 2019. That day, Donnette went from a mother of one to a mother of four overnight, raising her sister’s children while navigating her own immense grief. She struggled to make ends meet as grocery prices and the cost of living continued to skyrocket. Her salary-based income disqualified her from essential benefits, yet wasn’t enough to get food on everyone’s plates.
“I did everything I was supposed to,” Donnette says. “I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and I have a great job, but it’s just not enough to raise four children.”
With the newfound responsibility to feed four children, she turned to Catholic Charities of Boston — a member of the Greater Boston Food Bank’s (GBFB) network —- and found the assistance she needed to feed her family. She has since become a staunch advocate for food justice and a longtime pantry volunteer.
While Donnette’s personal story is one of inspiring resilience, it also raises a broader question — why are we not doing more to deliver for Massachusetts’ mothers and birthing individuals?
Stories like Donnette’s are all too common: women of color caught at the intersection of systemic failures. In this case, Donnette and her sister were impacted by two areas we know disproportionately affect Black women: food insecurity and maternal health outcomes. These may appear to be separate matters — but the reality of each issue paints the same picture of deeply disparate health outcomes for mothers, especially mothers of color.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that the Commonwealth’s Black residents face more than double the rate of severe maternal morbidity than their white counterparts, and that gap has widened every year since 2010. Meanwhile, GBFB’s newest statewide study reveals consistent inequities in food access for households of color, reporting 48% of Black and 41% of Hispanic households facing child-level food insecurity, surpassing the statewide average of 35%. A devastating 44% of households using WIC benefits report watering down food or infant formula to make ends meet, an example of the generational impact of food insecurity.
These disparities are compounded by the fact that services that supported food security and financial stability for current and expecting mothers have diminished from pandemic-era levels. Alongside decreased SNAP allotments, threats to WIC programs loom.
Massachusetts, a state at the forefront of equity, health innovation and food distribution, still has a long way to go to deliver consistently healthy outcomes to our mothers and birthing individuals of color. Each social determinant of health — nutrition, housing, economic empowerment, education and more — is as inseparable from health outcomes and equity as the last, and it is with intersections like these in mind that we must prioritize the most disadvantaged mothers in our state.
The Health Equity Compact‘s movement has already spurred a collective, statewide focus on these unequal health outcomes. An Act to Advance Health Equity, the Compact’s landmark legislation, begins to unravel these inequities and provides a blueprint to close these gaps, working in conjunction with the aforementioned maternal health legislation and like-minded bills. The Healey administration’s dedication to maternal health and doula services is another step in the right direction. At Mass General Brigham, programs to pair pregnant and parenting individuals with doulas, nutrition security resources and social support services are moving the needle on equity outcomes.
Meanwhile, GBFB works to empower its network of over 600 food distribution partners to meet the persistent need for food among families through public, private and philanthropic partnerships. Hunger-relief programs like universal free school meals, a tremendous success for Massachusetts, alongside solutions like the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program (MEFAP) and the Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill also lighten the burden of food insecurity for the households that are most in need.
It’s cross-sector solutions like these — as well as the “Momnibus” bill and life-saving programs like Medicaid, SNAP and WIC — that truly make a difference for the mothers and birthing individuals of Massachusetts. An intersectional, holistic approach that prioritizes both maternal outcomes and the social determinants of health that shape them is the only path forward. It’s beyond time for us to collectively invest in health equity, food security and the other systems that empower our state’s mothers, so families like Donnette’s can achieve the healthy futures we are all entitled to.
Catherine D’Amato is president & CEO at the Greater Boston Food Bank. Elsie Taveras is chief community health and equity officer at Mass General Brigham and a Health Equity Compact Member.
