New York City is seeing success through it's citywide doula initiative, which helped to reduce the number of maternal deaths among mothers.
Mayor Eric Adams and officials from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on Monday said the the Citywide Doula Initiative has reached more than 3,200 New Yorkers since 2022, with no maternal deaths among participants and gains in reducing C-section and preterm birth rates. The program is part of a larger push to address stark racial gaps in maternal health outcomes across the city.
“Expecting a child should be the happiest time of a woman’s life. Unfortunately, pregnancy and childbirth can be dangerous, especially for Black and Hispanic women in our city, and across America; that is why one of the very-first announcements we made when we came into office was to launch our Citywide Doula Initiative and show how serious we were about tackling maternal mortality,” Adams said in a statement.
Black women in New York City face pregnancy-related death rates up to six times higher than those of white women. The Citywide Doula Initiative, launched in 2022 and signed into law later that year, aims to close these disparities by providing free doula services in neighborhoods long lacking investment, as well as to residents of shelters and foster care.
In 2024 alone, the initiative served over 1,100 new clients, surpassing its goal of 1,000. Nearly half of all doula-attended births in disinvested neighborhoods last year were through the Citywide Doula Initiative. Since its start, the program has attended more than 2,300 births, trained 148 community members as doulas and provided professional development to over 500 doulas working across the city.
Participants in the program are largely Black and Hispanic. In 2024, 61% of clients identified as Black, and 44 percent as Hispanic or Latina. The program has also expanded access for non-English-speaking New Yorkers, with nearly one in four new clients last year not speaking English as a primary language. Around 16% of all clients were living in shelters or other precarious housing and 94% used Medicaid or other public insurance.
Doulas provide non-medical support during pregnancy and childbirth, helping reduce invasive procedures and hospital stays while improving safety and comfort. The initiative partners with ten community-based doula organizations, holds trainings for hospital staff to improve doula collaboration and distributes a guidebook to help hospitals become more doula-friendly.
