There are so many people working to try and turn around the crisis Black women are facing when it comes to maternal mortality. One of them is Rep. Emilia Sykes, a freshman member of Congress. This is an issue News 5 Anchor Courtney Gousman has been following closely in her ongoing series, Delivering Better Results. She sat down with Sykes to talk about her agenda in Washington and learned the congresswoman has a passion for helping moms and infants that stated before she ever worked in politics.
“I’ve been truly honored to be a part of Congress. The 118th Congress had a record number of women and a record number of people of color. We are one of the youngest classes in history,” she said. The former state legislator was raised in Akron and now represents her hometown and the Canton area in the U.S. House of Representatives. She’s the first Black person to do so.
“We are here to help,” Sykes said. “And our number one, two and three priority are the people of Ohio’s 13th Congressional District.” Gousman learned there are a set of issues near and dear to the congresswoman’s heart, especially infant and maternal outcomes. When she served at the state level, Sykes was part of Ohio’s first Black Maternal Health Caucus.
“We were deeply concerned about infant mortality rates, and as we continued those conversations, we realized we weren’t going to have healthy babies without healthy moms,” she said. Sykes decided the next natural step was for her to join the Black Maternal Health Caucus on the federal level. She’s now one of more than 120 members of Congress that makes up the group dedicated to improving health outcomes and ending disparities for Black moms.
The Caucus's main agenda is passing the Momnibus Act. It’s a package of 13 bills focused on various socio-economic issues that impact women during pregnancy and beyond, including food insecurity, transportation, and mental health conditions. The package also includes bills that would extend WIC and Medicaid coverage for new moms, along with legislation to diversify the perinatal workforce so mothers can find healthcare workers who look like them.
“We’re trying to tackle those community issues to ensure families have what they need to be healthy and well,” she said.
But it’s not a simple matter of pushing legislation through Congress.
“It is always challenging to get something through Congress, and the last Congress was pretty successful in moving forward some of the agenda, but we are still trying to convince our colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both chambers how important it is to care for women, to care for mothers," she said
The Momnibus Act was originally introduced in 2020 with nine bills addressing the Black maternal health crisis. Today the package has been expanded to include other marginalized groups like Native Americans and incarcerated moms.
“There were some recent studies that just came out that showed that Black women have the highest maternal death rate in the country and that Native and Indigenous populations, their numbers are starting to grow exponentially,” said Sykes.
With the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. spiking to 40% in 2021 and Black women now being more than 2.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related issues, Sykes said she’s most concerned about the disparities that exist along racial lines. She pointed to the recent death of U.S. track star and Olympic gold medalist Tori Bowie highlighting the urgency for action.
“That is absurd,” she said. “There is no reason women at the top of their health, at the top of their game, the prime of their life, are experiencing such heartache and trauma during what should be one of the greatest times of their life.”
Sykes said the caucus is dedicated to chopping away at the package of bills that make up the Momnibus Act until the entire agenda becomes law. The first bill was signed into law in 2021. The Moms Who Served Act provides funding and support for improved care at VA facilities for pre- and post-natal care for our veterans.
