In 2024, the maternal mortality rate for Black women in the United States was 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. For white women, it was 14.2. That's a Black woman dying from pregnancy-related causes at more than three times the rate of a white woman — in the same country, often in the same hospitals, sometimes with the same doctors.
That number isn't a glitch. It's not improving fast. And it isn't explained by income, education, or insurance.
This is the most damning health equity statistic in America. And it's the one that drives everything we do.
Money Doesn't Save Her
The standard story we tell about health disparities is that they come down to access. Better jobs, better insurance, better neighborhoods — better outcomes. That story falls apart at the delivery room door.
College-educated Black women die from pregnancy-related causes at a higher rate than white women who didn't finish high school. Let that sit for a second. The thing we tell people to do — get the degree, get the job, get the insurance — does not close this gap.
Serena Williams almost died after giving birth to her daughter in 2017. She told her nurses she couldn't breathe, that she knew she had a history of blood clots, that she needed a CT scan and a heparin drip. They suggested she was confused from the pain medication. She had to insist, repeatedly, before they ran the scan that found the pulmonary embolism that would have killed her.
Beyoncé developed preeclampsia carrying her twins and was on bed rest for over a month before an emergency C-section. She's talked openly about how close it came.
Tori Bowie — Olympic gold medalist, three-time world champion — died alone in her home in 2023, in labor, from complications including preeclampsia and eclampsia. She was 32 years old.
If wealth, fame, and the best healthcare money can buy aren't enough — what is?
What's Actually Killing Her
Maternal mortality reviews — the state-level investigations that look at each death — keep landing on the same set of causes:
Pain dismissal. Decades of research show Black patients are taken less seriously when they report pain. A 2016 study out of the University of Virginia found that half of medical students and residents surveyed still held at least one false belief about biological differences between Black and white patients — including that Black people have "thicker skin" or feel less pain. These beliefs are wrong. They are also still in the room.
Symptoms missed or minimized. The warning signs of postpartum hemorrhage, preeclampsia, blood clots, and cardiomyopathy don't always announce themselves. When a Black mother reports headaches, swelling, shortness of breath, or unrelenting pain and is told "that's normal," the clock that could have saved her life is already running out.
The "strong Black woman" trap. Cultural narratives that frame Black women as inherently tougher, more resilient, more able to "push through" — narratives we sometimes carry ourselves — get weaponized in clinical settings. Strength is a beautiful thing. It is also not a substitute for being heard.
Postpartum abandonment. The U.S. healthcare system largely treats pregnancy as ending at delivery. But more than half of pregnancy-related deaths happen after the baby is born — in the days, weeks, and months when a new mother is sent home, exhausted, and told to call if anything feels off. For many Black mothers, "anything feels off" gets dismissed before it ever reaches a doctor's ear.
Doula and midwife shortages. The presence of a doula — a trained, non-clinical birth advocate — measurably improves outcomes, including for Black mothers. But doulas are rarely covered by insurance, and certified Black midwives, who historically were the backbone of Black maternal care in this country, were systematically pushed out of the profession across the 20th century. The infrastructure that protected our mothers was dismantled, and we are still paying the bill.
This Is a Fixable Problem
Here's the part that should make you angry — and then make you act:
We know what works. States that have extended Medicaid postpartum coverage from 60 days to a full 12 months have seen measurable drops in maternal deaths. States that have integrated doulas into Medicaid coverage have improved outcomes. Hospitals that have implemented standardized maternal early warning systems — protocols that force a clinical response when vital signs cross certain thresholds — have cut deaths from hemorrhage and hypertension.
We know who's at risk. Maternal mortality review committees have been telling us, year after year, that the majority of these deaths are preventable. Not most. The majority.
We know the gap can close. California has done it. By implementing statewide protocols, training, and review processes through the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, the state cut its maternal mortality rate roughly in half between 2006 and 2013 — and narrowed the Black-white gap in the process. Other states have not followed.
This is a problem with known solutions and a known cost of inaction. What's missing is the will, the funding, and the political pressure to scale what already works.
Where Shatter the Glass Comes In
This is exactly the kind of fight our work was built for. Health equity is not an abstract concept when a mother doesn't come home from the hospital. It's the line between a child growing up with her, and a child growing up without her.
We are committed to:
Educating our community on the warning signs, the right questions to ask, and the right to advocate fiercely in clinical settings
Partnering with community organizations, doulas, midwives, and clinics doing this work on the ground
Advocating for Medicaid postpartum extension, doula coverage, and hospital accountability measures in every state and city we can reach
Funding the programs that train, support, and place Black birth workers in the communities that need them most
None of this happens without resources. None of it scales without you.
What You Can Do Today
If you're a sponsor or potential donor: Your dollars directly fund maternal health education, advocacy, and community partnerships. Sponsor our work or donate to the initiative. This is not abstract giving. It is a line item against a death rate.
If you're an individual supporter: Share this post. Talk about Black maternal mortality with the people in your life who don't know these numbers. Call your state representatives about postpartum Medicaid extension. Show up.
If you're a Black woman who is pregnant or planning to be: Bring an advocate to every appointment. Write down your symptoms. Ask "what are you ruling out?" when you're told something is normal. Know the warning signs of postpartum complications — severe headache, shortness of breath, chest pain, heavy bleeding, swelling, vision changes — and treat any of them as an emergency, not an inconvenience. You are not being difficult. You are being alive.
She should have lived. They all should have lived. And the next one — the one whose name we don't know yet — still can.
