Maternal Wellness Village, a Jenkintown-based collective, hopes to improve health outcomes for pregnant Black people with help of Temple University researchers, writes Aparna Nathan for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

They have partnered to study how easy access to community support services — Black doulas, lactation consultants, and more — can reduce complications and deaths relating to Black pregnancies.

Black women account for 73 percent of pregnancy-related deaths, while only accounting for 43 percent of births.

Additionally, out of 26 pregnancy-related deaths in 2020, more than half could have been prevented, according to a Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee report.

The same report has found that 46 percent of pregnancy-related deaths were caused by heart conditions.

As a result, the partnership plans to utilize a $6 million grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to focus on improving heart health before and after giving birth.

“What they find from this study will really help inform the kinds of activities that we can implement more broadly to really make a difference,” Aasta Mehta, medical officer of women’s health at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Read more about Maternal Wellness Village in The Philadelphia Inquirer.