Kaiser Permanente donates $200K to improve statewide maternal, infant care 

Health care consortium Kaiser Permanente will donate $200,000 to the Center for Black Women’s Wellness and the Georgia Family Connection Partnership.

The two Atlanta-based organizations will receive roughly $100,000 each to better health practices among caregivers and shrink the racial gap negatively impacting Georgia’s Black families.

According to a press release on the announcement, the Center for Black Women’s Wellness will use the grant to fund educational and training efforts to improve birthing outcomes for Atlanta residents, as a part of the organization’s Doorways to Maternal Health project. The center will also dedicate a portion of donated funds to increase doula connections and offer enhanced health care services to new mothers following delivery.

“Doulas offer a unique form of perinatal service by providing support throughout labor to delivering mothers and their families,” said Center for Black Women’s Wellness CEO Jemea Dorsey. “Thanks to this investment from Kaiser Permanente, we will create equitable access to doula services, provide prenatal and postpartum education, and enhance care coordination to improve maternal health outcomes in Atlanta.”

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women are around three times more likely to die than white women during the perinatal period of pregnancy, which includes the time of birth as well as the subsequent year. Various medical studies state that Black women and pregnant people often face higher mortality rates during childbirth as a result of a lack of access to adequate medical care, as well as racial bias that permeates America’s health care industry.

The Georgia Family Connection Partnership will use its share of Kaiser’s donation to fund its Promoting Women’s Health: Low Birthweight Prevention Cohort project, which works to reduce low birthweight birth rates across the state. The organization consists of dozens of local collaboratives spanning across Georgia’s 159 counties. The grant will fund maternal and infant care efforts in six counties located around the southern region of the metro Atlanta area, including Clayton, Fayette and Spalding.

According to a 2021 report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Georgia ranks 47th in the country for LBW-born babies, indicating LBW birth rates within the state are some of the highest in America. The same study reports that the LBW birth rate has increased almost two percentage points in Georgia since 2002.

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