It's one thing to identify the complex social cause of this crisis. It's far harder to combat racism and stop more babies from dying.
This project received support from the Center for Health Journalism's California Fellowship and its Fund for Journalism on Child Well-being....
Reporter Priska Neely talks to her sister Nicole to talk about the two babies she lost nearly 20 years ago, after going into premature labor both times.
There is nothing inherent about black skin that increases risks during pregnancy — except over-exposure to the real culprit, racism, which can harm a mother’s body in real, measurable ways.
Christin Farmer knew she wanted to help women have babies at 16, when she watched an episode of TLC's "A Baby Story" and saw a midwife with a birthing center delivering babies.
Birth attendants can positively affect outcomes for mothers and infants. But access to them is often out of reach for low-income and minority women, who have the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality.
Research has shown that sex education results in fewer teen pregnancies, but in California's politically conservative San Joaquin Valley, there is a history of strong push-back against sex ed.
Maps of the modern plagues of health disparities — rural hospital closings, medical provider shortages, poor education outcomes, poverty and mortality — all glow along this Southern corridor.
Martha Escudero draws on her own experience of severe depression and grinding poverty as she makes home visits to at-risk mothers in East Los Angeles, offering what help she can.
In the past 30 years, Indianapolis' infant mortality rate has decreased by more than a third. But Indiana still has the second-highest black infant mortality rate in the country.
