FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
– Black Women-Led Coalition Launches Alabama Birth Equity Initiative to Confront State’s Maternal Health Crisis
– Yellowhammer Fund and partners unite midwifery, mutual aid, and policy advocacy to save lives and shift power
BIRMINGHAM, AL – 8/21/2025 – In one of the most hostile reproductive landscapes in the United States, where punitive laws, rural hospital closures, and chronic underinvestment have made pregnancy disproportionately dangerous, a coalition of Black women-led organizations today announced the launch of the Alabama Birth Equity Initiative. This statewide, community-driven effort confronts Alabama’s maternal health crisis through a holistic, Reproductive Justice-centered approach rooted in the leadership, knowledge, and survival strategies of those most impacted.
Led by Yellowhammer Fund in collaboration with Margins: Women Helping Black Women, Oasis Women’s Health, Alabama Birth Center, and Chocolate Milk Mommies the initiative addresses not just the symptoms of poor maternal health outcomes, but the structural conditions that create them. By combining midwifery care, mutual aid, leadership development, and policy change, the Alabama Birth Equity Initiative aims to save lives, expand community power, and dismantle the systemic barriers that have failed Black women and birthing people for generations.
“Alabama’s maternal health crisis isn’t just about a lack of doctors or closed hospitals—it’s about the way policy, poverty, and racism have worked together to make safe birth a privilege instead of a right. In one of the most hostile reproductive landscapes in the country, we can’t afford piecemeal solutions. The Alabama Birth Equity Initiative is about changing the conditions that put our lives at risk—by building care systems led by Black women, rooted in community, and strong enough to last for generations.” — Jenice Fountain, Executive Director, Yellowhammer Fund
“Too often, conversations about maternal health in Alabama stop at the hospital doors. But the truth is, safe birth starts long before labor—it starts with stable housing, reliable transportation, respectful care, and communities that have what they need to thrive. The Alabama Birth Equity Initiative is about making sure those things aren’t luxuries. It’s about building the kind of everyday conditions where Black women and birthing people can live full lives, not just survive pregnancy.” — Celida Soto, Executive Director, Margins: Women Helping Black Women
A Holistic Model for Birth Equity
The Alabama Birth Equity Initiative is built on a simple but radical truth: safe birth is not determined only in delivery rooms. It is shaped by the economic, political, and cultural conditions that surround a person long before they go into labor. In a state where one-third of counties have no obstetric services and Black women face maternal mortality rates three times higher than white women, care must go beyond the clinical.
This initiative integrates five mutually reinforcing strategies:
- Midwifery-led prenatal, birth, and postpartum care through Oasis Women’s Health and Alabama Birth Center, expanding access to culturally responsive, trauma-informed care that listens to and respects Black women and birthing people.
- Training and certifying Black midwives and birth workers through a BIPOC-centered apprenticeship program, dismantling barriers to the profession and ensuring that care is provided by those who share lived experience with the communities they serve.
- Mobile outreach to maternity care deserts via Yellowhammer Fund’s Repro Raven, delivering emergency contraception, reproductive health education, and policy resources to rural and underserved areas.
- Strengthening mutual aid networks through Margins: Women Helping Black Women, offering 24-hour food pantries, emergency financial assistance, and direct support for housing, utilities, and childcare, recognizing that a healthy pregnancy is impossible without stable resources.
- Policy advocacy for systemic change, targeting Medicaid expansion, birth center protections, midwifery licensure, and the dismantling of laws that criminalize pregnancy outcomes.
An Urgent Need
In Alabama, giving birth while Black is shaped by forces far beyond the delivery room. The state’s maternal mortality rate is among the highest in the nation, and, reflecting a national crisis, Black women face a risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes that is nearly three times higher than that of white women (CDC, 2024). In more than one-third of Alabama counties, no obstetric care is available (March of Dimes, 2023). Rural hospital closures, laws that criminalize pregnancy outcomes, and the refusal to expand Medicaid have further deepened the crisis.
Yellowhammer Fund’s 2025 community survey makes clear how these systemic failures play out in people’s lives:
- 45% of respondents faced transportation barriers to care.
- 44% were prevented from seeking care due to cost.
- More than half lived in rural areas, where travel to a provider can mean hours on the road and no public transit.
- Over one-quarter experienced stigma from healthcare providers, leading many to delay or avoid needed services.
These conditions are not isolated hardships; they are the predictable outcomes of policy choices and systemic neglect. The Alabama Birth Equity Initiative exists to replace this landscape of risk with one of care, autonomy, and community-led solutions.
Centering Those Most Impacted
At the core of the Alabama Birth Equity Initiative is a commitment to shift both resources and decision-making power into the hands of those who live with the consequences of Alabama’s maternal health crisis. The initiative is led by Black women and gender-expansive people whose own experiences—as organizers, caregivers, midwives, and patients—inform every part of its design.
This leadership is not symbolic. It shapes how care is delivered, how policies are challenged, and how communities are mobilized. By ensuring that those most affected are the ones setting priorities, the initiative aligns its strategies with lived realities rather than abstract targets. It also builds accountability: when solutions are rooted in community, they are designed to last.
The work reaches across urban centers and rural towns, connecting people who might otherwise be isolated by geography, cost, or stigma. Whether through a midwife-assisted birth, a mobile clinic visit, or an advocacy campaign at the Statehouse, the Alabama Birth Equity Initiative is building a statewide network of care that reflects the resilience, expertise, and vision of the communities it serves.
Call to Action
The Alabama Birth Equity Initiative is more than a program — it is a commitment to changing the conditions that put Black women and birthing people’s lives at risk. We invite community members, funders, healthcare professionals, and policymakers to join us in building a statewide network of care that is led by those most impacted, resourced for the long term, and powerful enough to challenge the systems that have failed us.
To learn more, schedule interviews, or support the initiative, contact [email protected]. Together, we can ensure that in Alabama, safe birth is not a privilege — it is a right. Click here to donate and support this crucial initiative.
About Yellowhammer Fund
Yellowhammer Fund is a Black-led, Alabama-based Reproductive Justice organization serving Alabama, Mississippi, and the Deep South. We provide community education, policy advocacy, mutual aid, and legal defense to ensure that individuals and families have the resources and autonomy to make decisions about their bodies and their futures. Learn more at yellowhammerfund.org.
About Margins: Women Helping Black Women
Margins uplifts and strengthens Black women and their ability to parent by providing practical support, from bill assistance and childcare to self-care resources and community-building activities.
About Oasis Women’s Health
Oasis provides midwifery-led, holistic maternal health care, offering prenatal, birth, and postpartum services that center dignity, safety, and culturally responsive care.
About Alabama Birth Center
The Alabama Birth Center expands access to out-of-hospital birth options and midwifery care, offering safe, supportive environments for pregnancy, labor, and postpartum care.
About Chocolate Milk Mommies Chocolate Milk Mommies seeks to decrease black infant and maternal mortality and morbidity rates and to decrease racial disparities in black maternal and child health by implementing initiatives that support breastfeeding and increase access to maternal and child health care resources, education, professionals, and trained peers in black communities.