Blunt Rochester, Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly Speak about Their Work to End Maternal Mortality
Wilmington, Del. — In case you missed it, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester guest hosted a special edition of Her Perspective from DETV’s Every Woman. As a part of her “Delivering for Delaware” statewide tour, the Congresswoman was joined in DETV’s Wilmington studio by Illinois’s Rep. Robin Kelly for a conversation on the Black maternal mortality crisis. In the conversation, Blunt Rochester and Kelly traced their personal connections to the issue, their ongoing work to find solutions for this crisis, and how the overturn of Roe v. Wade has exacerbated this issue.
Blunt Rochester on the state of the maternal mortality crisis in America:
- “As a country, we are one of the most successful countries in the world. But when it comes to maternal mortality, our rates of death are going up instead of coming down. And of industrialized countries, we’re the worst.”
Kelly on the story that brought her to the work and the impact of advocacy:
- “I hate almost to admit it, but I didn’t even know it was a problem until I came to Congress, and one of my constituents said, I want to tell you a story. […] She told me that story, and I went back to DC, and we hit the ground running. We had a forum right away, and it was packed with women — and with men, because they lost their wife, sisters, daughters.
“We started moving from there to try to make a difference in the space. So my legislation was having the Medicaid postpartum coverage go from 60 days to a year. We have some legislation around cultural competency. We have legislation around doulas and midwives.”
Kelly on Black women being ignored by providers:
- “Access is a big problem […]. I also think we have to nail down what is it that for Black women, their pain, or our pain, is not respected, and that women in general are not listened to, but it just seems like Black women in particular, our pain is not respected.”
Blunt Rochester on the professional and personal experiences that have shaped her understanding of this crisis:
- “I was Deputy Secretary of Health and Social Services. And so I started hearing about the issues — particularly of infant mortality, which was a big, big challenge for us here in Delaware.
“And then the issue of maternal mortality is something that we’ve seen from testimony, people who have come to testify before us [in Congress]. But again, we have our own personal stories.
“I remember […] my sister, Thea, after giving birth to my nephew, she started experiencing this really bad headache. Thea could have died that day.
“I think about that and the fact that sometimes our voices are not heard, even when we say, during pregnancy: hey, I’m not feeling well — we don’t have the same resources.”
Blunt Rochester on her family’s personal story with maternal care:
- “Most recently for me — as you know, because you’re one of my besties — we experienced it in our family with my daughter-in-law.
“After going through rounds [of treatment,] dealing with IVF, and finally getting pregnant, […] I was cooking Christmas breakfast,[…] and she called and she said, ‘Mom, something is not right.’
“She said her water broke. It was premature, very premature.
“She showed up at a hospital and was told, ‘Well, we can’t do a [dilation and curettage]. We can’t.’
“I was afraid that she might get sepsis. I was afraid she might die. We ended up going somewhere else and she miscarried.
“A year and a half later, she was able to birth my granddaughter — my first granddaughter. And so when I think about these stories, the things that we’ve seen and heard is that for Black women in particular, doesn’t matter your education, it doesn’t matter your income, we are still disproportionately impacted by this.”
Blunt Rochester on the policies that we need to protect to give Americans the care they deserve:
- “If things like the Affordable Care Act, if things like Medicaid don’t exist, then people don’t get access [to care].
“One of the challenges that we heard during our hearing was, when you don’t speak up, you might not get the care. And when you speak up, [you might not get care]. One of the witnesses, he is a dad, and he said, I was thought of as an angry Black man or an angry Black woman. Finding ways to make sure that we are heard is really important.”
Blunt Rochester on the impact of overturning Roe v. Wade:
- “Now there is data coming back to show the places where they have put these strong bans on [abortion,] that their infant mortality rates are going up. They also tend to be the same places where they […] haven’t expanded Medicaid. […] They might not have education for young people, and so their teen pregnancy rate may be going up higher, which also affects maternal mortality. What we know is that the overturning of Roe has also made professionals, health care professionals, […] feel like they might be criminalized.”
Kelly on why electing women with these lived experiences is critical in 2024:
- “To move any piece of legislation, you have to have the right people at the table at the right time. […] People like us will take care of the kitchen table issues, the issues most important to everyday people. Whether it’s freedoms around reproductive rights, gun violence prevention, your education, your democracy, our future — [we need] people with vision that really care about everyday people.”
Both Congresswoman Blunt Rochester and Congresswoman Kelly are noted leaders on the issue of Black maternal health care. Earlier this year, Congresswoman Blunt Rochester hosted national and state leaders for a roundtable on the Black maternal health crisis.
The conversation with Congresswoman Kelly, which touched on the issues discussed in Congresswoman Blunt Rochester’s Black maternal health roundtable, is part of Blunt Rochester’s “Delivering for Delaware” statewide tour. The tour is aimed at engaging directly with Delawareans about the issues that matter most, highlighting the Congresswoman’s achievements in the House, and what she hopes to accomplish in the Senate for the First State.