At North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, our mission is to bring hope and healing to children and families experiencing depression, anxiety and other challenges. Although we are a children’s mental health organization, we know that emotional well-being and physical health are inexorably tied, each deeply impacting the other.
The Guidance Center has several programs that promote the health of mothers and children. One is our Good Beginnings for Babies program, which aims to promote healthier pregnancies that will result in healthier babies and to nurture relationships between parent and child. Good Beginnings for Babies supports teen and young adult mothers prior to the birth of their child and throughout the first year of the child’s life with support, counseling and advocacy.
Through our Diane Goldberg Maternal Depression Program, we provide a rapid response and diagnosis for mothers suffering from postpartum depression and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, which are estimated to impact one in seven women.
As part of our educational and advocacy work, the Guidance Center partnered with Hofstra University’s Public Health Program, School of Health Science and Human Services to create Birth Justice Warriors, an initiative born out of the crippling bias and injustice faced by Black mothers in the United States in general and in Nassau County in particular.
According to the New York State Department of Health, a Black woman is up to four times more likely to die in childbirth than a white mother. In Nassau County, the infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births is 9.4 for Black babies versus the 2.2 reported for white non-Hispanic babies.
Birth Justice Warriors are volunteer advocates from many professions and backgrounds, working with community members, pediatricians, nurses, health care professionals, elected officials, members of faith-based institutions and others to bring education and awareness to this inequality. Ultimately, one of Birth Justice Warriors’ goals is to have legislation written that guarantees that this crucial information is delivered to all women of child-bearing age.
In late January, I joined with Dr. Martine Hackett, my Birth Justice Warrior co-founder and an associate professor in the public health and community health programs at Hofstra, at a press conference held by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. The senator, along with Representative Alma Adams of North Carolina, are the sponsors of the Maternal CARE Act, which would provide funding for evidence-based training programs to reduce bias in maternal health and establish programs to bring health care services to pregnant women and new mothers in an effort to reduce the disproportionate rate of maternal death and other poor health outcomes among Black women and their babies.
In her statement, Gillibrand said the following: “Health equity for Black women can only happen if we recognize and address persistent biases in our health system and do more to ensure women have access to culturally competent, holistic care to reduce preventable maternal mortality.”
Both North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center and Birth Justice Warriors support this important legislation, and we hope that you will join us in spreading the word so that allwomen receive the care they need and deserve.
Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust is the Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Leeds Place and is a co-founder of Birth Justice Warriors, a collaboration of the Guidance Center and Hofstra University. To learn more about Birth Justice Warriors, contact Dr. Walthrust-Taylor at (516) 997-2926, ext. 229, or email NTaylorWalthrust@northshorechildguidance.org.
