Black maternal health is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed as Black women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth and twice as likely to suffer a miscarriage than their white counterparts. Additionally, Black children are twice as likely to die from birth. The pervasive issue of Black maternal mortality has been neglected for years, across the Commonwealth and beyond, but now former Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy is seeking to address the issue head-on as she campaigns to become the next governor of the Commonwealth.

Black children are twice as likely to die from birth and Black women are twice as likely to suffer a miscarriage

Carroll Foy spoke with PW Perspective in order to highlight her campaign’s platform and vision for addressing Black maternal health in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Emphasizing the importance of the issue, Carroll Foy expressed her disappointment that Black women are dying at third-world country rates in Virginia despite the fact that the Commonwealth is the tenth wealthiest state in the country. She also stressed the fact that this is an issue that impacts all Black women, regardless of socio-economic class, educational background, and region.

“We are more likely to not be seen, not be believed, and not be heard, and it’s costing Black women our lives,” Carroll Foy said. “Black maternal health means addressing this in a real, systemic way, and I started to do that as a delegate.”

During her time in the House of Delegates, Carroll Foy introduced a bill that allowed doulas to be covered by Medicaid in Virginia in order to make care more accessible to Black women.

Carroll Foy’s plan to address the issue includes increasing funding for the Virginia Maternal Mortality Review Team, and she plans to direct the team to focus on how institutions can contribute to racial disparities in maternal health treatment and the issue of biases in medical practice. Her plan also includes increasing the number of students of color in the medical field in order to ensure diversity in medical practitioners.

Noting that personal biases are just as important and destructive in the medical field as they are in the field of policing, Carroll Foy expressed that we need more training in residency programs and for medical students in order to rectify this issue. She also noted that the racist myth that Black people experience pain differently is still very prevalent and needs to be dispelled. 

“People are people, and the first job is to do no harm,” Caroll Foy said, but she expressed that those sentiments were not part of her experience.

When asked what the most important part of her plan is, Carroll Foy said that her vision is based on listening to experts and finding evidence-based solutions to the problem. She believes that Virginia needs to look at the best practices and policies throughout the country and implement them in order to have a meaningful impact on the issue. Her full healthcare plan can be found here.

One obstacle that Carroll Foy could face with her policies is the distrust for the medical system that has been instilled in Black communities across America due to years of mistreatment, malpractice, and in many cases blatant, disturbing neglect and discrimination. However, she says she is ready to tackle the issue head-on and communicate with these communities.

“I will use my position as governor and use the bully pulpit that I have to continue to advocate for more people of color to get vaccinated,” Carroll Foy said. “I am very conscious of the fact that there is a lot of distrust among black Virginians and people of color in general, given the Jim Crow policies, given the Tuskegee Experiment, given a number of times that the government has broken trust with people of color in America.”

She expressed that it is important to have these conversations about distrust in the government so that we can acknowledge the wrong-doing and work to do right. She also noted that there are still a lot of barriers for people of color seeking healthcare in Virginia including the price of prescriptions.

At one time, Carroll Foy herself was forced to choose between making mortgage payments and paying for medicine after her grandmother suffered a stroke. Despite the fact that her grandmother worked at Central State Hospital in Petersburg, she did not have access to the care she needed.

No stranger to the way the current medical system treats Black women, Carroll Foy shared her firsthand experience of being prematurely discharged from the hospital after her pregnancy. 

“After I had my boys and I complained about pain, I was not seen, I was not heard, and I was not believed. But I was sent home feeling pain almost worse than labor,” she said. “I’ll never forget dropping to my knees in excruciating pain and having my husband rushing me to the emergy room where I was immediately admitted. The doctors told me that if I had stayed home a little while longer, I would have lost my life.”

She said that Black women should not have to have someone like her husband by their side in order to survive childbirth.

Carroll Foy, who was first elected to the House of Delegates in 2017, was pregnant through most of her campaign. Despite facing adversity from people who told her she needed to take a step back, she persisted, and, after giving birth to her twin boys, won her election in the 2nd District.

“I’m excited, I’m energized, I’m motivated because I’ll never forget where I came from, and I have seen the inequities in our system and I’ve had to fight those battles to survive,” Carroll Foy said. “We cannot continue to go forward, as a Commonwealth, while we are leaving so many communities behind.”

If elected, Jennifer Carroll Foy would be the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state in the nation, and she would be the first woman to serve as governor of Virginia. To learn more about her and her campaign, you can visit https://jennifercarrollfoy.com/.