Charlotte maternal health forum brings advocates together

CARE RING

U.S. Rep. Alma Adams (right), co-founder of the Black Maternal Health Caucus, is one of the scheduled speakers at a maternal health conference in Charlotte.

Closing the race gap in healthy pregnancies is the focus of a Charlotte forum. 

The third annual Maternal Health Conference April 9 at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church will bring together health professionals, advocates and families to discuss policies and solutions. Registration is required and a virtual participation option is included at careringnc.org/events/2026-mh-conference.

“We are celebrating in a small way the gradual improvement in infant mortality rates that have decreased so we do,” said Care Ring CEO Tchernavia Montgomery, the forum’s convener. “We have been digging in, doing the work and making sure that we are focusing on things like high-risk pregnancies and the disparities that we know that exist persistently, and especially with black infants.”

On the agenda are expert panels and breakout sessions, networking with professionals from health systems, public health agencies and grassroots initiatives. Presentations by maternal health equity and care delivery leaders are also scheduled.

One of the scheduled speakers, U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, last week reintroduced the Kira Johnson Act along to address the Black maternal health gap. The bill, which was also introduced in the Senate by Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, is named after Kira Johnson, a Black woman from Los Angeles who died following childbirth when hospital staff didn’t respond to signs of internal hemorrhaging for more than 10 hours.

The bill would fund federal grants to reduce racial bias through anti-discrimination training in maternity care settings.

It would also fund community-based organizations to prevent maternal mortality and severe morbidity among Black women along with maternity care compliance offices in hospitals to provide mechanisms for pregnant and postpartum patients to report racial, ethnic, or other types of bias.

“Kira Johnson is one of the many women who we have lost too soon,” Adams, a Charlotte Democrat who is co-founder and co-chair of the Black Maternal Health Caucus said in a statement. “It’s been 10 years since Kira Johnson’s death, yet Black women are still two to three times more likely than white moms to die in childbirth. Eighty percent of those deaths are preventable. We need to close the Black maternal health gap.”

Birth outcomes are improving in Mecklenburg County, but racial disparities persist. A study on infant mortality published in March by the public health department found that non-Hispanic Black babies remain at increased risk of birth complications and death in their first year compared to their non-Hispanic white peers. 

From 2014-23, the overall rate of infant mortality dropped to 5 deaths per 1,000 births, which is better than the national rate of 5.6 and North Carolina rate of 6.8. When accounting for race and ethnicity, mortality rate from 2021-23 was 8.8 for Black infants, 4.8 for their Hispanic peers and 2.4 for white babies.

“We have learned over the last decade or so that poverty and education level have very little impact in someone’s ability to have a healthy pregnancy,” Montgomery said. “What we do know, however, is that race does play a factor. You can have a Black woman that has a PhD that unfortunately is experiencing systemic challenges with within their pregnancy that is contributing to them not having the experience that we know they should have. So we are framing it not just as a medical issue, but as a systemic issue and also paying attention to those social determinants of health.” 

According to county data:

• Perinatal conditions are the leading cause of infant deaths, accounting for nearly half of fatalities. Birth defects are the No. 2 cause.

• Sudden unexpected infant deaths, or SUIDs, are the top cause of injury-related deaths and third leading cause of deaths overall.  

• High blood pressure is a common maternal health risk factor before and during pregnancy. 

• One out of five pregnant mothers receive inadequate prenatal care, meaning they start care after the fourth month of pregnancy, or complete half or fewer recommended care visits. Hispanic women have the highest rates of inadequate care.

“Black infants are still three times more likely to die in the first year of life than white infants, so progress overall, but inequity is still a very central issue that we are trying to combat,” Montgomery said. “Where our organization is supporting those efforts is within our prenatal to 2 [years of age] programming that is evidence based, collaborative and very sensitive to the social determinants of health that we know our families are facing day to day.”

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