Maternal Mortality and Race

The racial disparities are so great that even healthy, middle-class Black women who don’t smoke and have good prenatal care have statistically worse birthing outcomes than do poor white women.

Implicit Bias and Mandatory Training

S.B. 464 puts a name to one of the likely causes of this disparity: implicit bias, which the bill defines as “bias in judgment or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes, including implicit prejudice and implicit stereotypes that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control.”

This bill would require hospitals to implement evidence-based training programs designed to identify and dismantle implicit bias in perinatal care, with an emphasis on the ways provider bias and stereotypes can affect outcomes for mothers and infants. Nurses and other clinicians who provide perinatal care would be required to complete such training, with refreshers every two years.

“California has a responsibility to ensure that all its residents can have safe and dignified pregnancy and childbirth,” Mitchell says.

Nurse-Midwife Support

S.B. 464 is being co-sponsored by the California Nurse-Midwives Association. You can learn more about the bill at leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

Editor’s Note:

S.B.464 subsequently passed both houses of the Legislature and was signed into law on Oct. 7, 2019

In this Article: California, Legislation and Public Policy, Pregnancy and Childbirth, Racism