Dear President Harmon and Deputy Majority Leader Emil Jones III,

We are the co-founders of Holistic Birth Collective, a community-based consumer advocacy organization working to reduce perinatal health disparities here in Illinois. We write to make you aware of the crippling effect the General Assembly’s failure to pass HB 3401 before adjournment will have on Illinois’s ability to capitalize on the unprecedented opportunities federal initiatives are providing us to advance racial equity in perinatal health.

In recent years, Illinois has been a leader in collecting excellent data on maternal mortality and morbidity statewide. As a result, this state has the benefit of knowing exactly what the problem is that is killing an unacceptable number of Black mothers and babies each year: ineffective perinatal health care. We offer this illustrative example from a former resident of the 39th district. In March 2015, Paula Mills Green was seven months pregnant with her second child, a daughter to be named Felicia. Paula had been receiving regular prenatal care from an outpatient clinic and had been advised to monitor her blood pressure closely. One afternoon, Paula’s father determined that Paula’s blood pressure constituted a medical emergency and called 911.

Paramedics transported Paula and unborn daughter to the Emergency Department of West Suburban Medical Center. Paramedics waited in the ED with Paula for about 90 minutes until they had to leave to respond to another call. Paramedics assured Paula she would be admitted soon and Paula was reassured that her daughter was okay because she could feel strong fetal movements.

Unfortunately, another four and a half hours passed while Paula was left without appropriate medical treatment. She began hemorrhaging onto the floor of the hospital and it was then that staff determined she warranted attention. Paula was then rushed to the OR for an emergency cesarean delivery only to learn that her daughter was stillborn. This tragedy in your district could have been prevented through timely medical attention from home-visiting midwives as first-line responders who have been well-integrated into the facility-based care system.

Paula’s case should not be dismissed as an isolated incident. The more recent unnecessary death of Lolita Davis and her unborn child in the ED waiting room of Roseland Community Hospital this past May suggests that the pandemic has only made the bureaucratic gaps and inefficiencies in perinatal healthcare worse for the most underserved families in Cook County. As mothers, we are no strangers to institutions demonstrating their disrespect of our time by subjecting us to unreasonably long waiting periods. In the case of Paula Mills Green’s daughter, Lolita Davis and her baby, and many others this disrespect proved fatal. Illinois mothers have been asked to wait for more than three decades to regain access to licensed community-based midwives. We ask you to put our safety first and not ask us to wait any longer.

For the General Assembly to fail to achieve licensure for Certified Professional Midwives before adjournment this session, in spite of sponsorship for 39 out of 59 Senate members will send a very clear message to the stakeholders best positioned to lead Illinois’s perinatal healthcare industry into the next decade: Illinois is not the place to advance industry and they are wise to relocate to more forward-thinking states such as Wisconsin and Indiana.

Illinois’s failure to join the other 36 states who license and regulate CPMs will result in the direction of billions of dollars in forthcoming federal HRSA grants and private venture capital intended to grow this nation’s workforce of Black Certified Professional Midwives over the next five years. This is a mistake that will come at a huge financial cost to Illinois taxpayers and an unacceptable human cost among families of color.

Illinois has several Black-serving institutions, most especially Malcolm X Community College, that could be the front-runner for perinatal workforce development grants that HRSA will be designating for Black-serving institutions. The priority of these programs is to create jobs that benefit public health and do not relegate Black Americans to under-paid health auxiliary roles. The licensed CPMs will be a groundbreaking addition to the Illinois healthcare workforce as it is a credential for which students can adequately prepare through an associate’s degree program and then go on to provide 87% of all reproductive health needs among Illinois’s pregnant-capable population. And because this emerging industry is specifically trained to work beyond the four walls of traditional healthcare facilities, they are uniquely positioned to pilot alternative payment models in maternal care and move beyond calcified processes that typify our current healthcare system.

We urge Senate leadership to not mistake pusillanimity for prudence. To delay the passage of HB 3401: The Midwife Practice Act by another six months will have an adverse impact on successful implementation of HB 3084: The Consumer Choice in Maternal Care for African- American Mothers Pilot Program. Our first and primary goal must be stopping the senseless loss of Black maternal lives here in Illinois.

Sincerely,

Star August and Callan Jaress

Holistic Birth Collective NFP