Montco Mamas, the new initiative from Montgomery County Maternal and Early Childhood Consortium and Maternity Care Coalition, is working on improving the health and well-being of local Black pregnant women, infants, and their families, writes Laura Brzyski for Philadelphia Magazine.

The initiative is using a systems-based change model and a collective impact framework to achieve this.

This means that “we’re dynamically figuring out what we can do together, as a community, to help Black women in Montgomery County have healthy babies, and support them before, during, and after pregnancy,” said Toscha Blalock, Montco Mamas project lead.

The Consortium received funding to perform a comprehensive examination of infant mortality rates and birth outcomes in Montgomery County in 2018.

The resulting report showed that the Black women in the county have the highest infant mortality rate of any racial group and that babies born to Black women have a three times higher chance of dying than babies born to white women.

After holding focus groups for Black women to help better understand what they need to improve birth outcomes, the Consortium secured a grant from HealthSpark amid the pandemic and launched the Montco Mamas initiative.

Read more about Montco Mamas at Philadelphia Magazine by clicking here.