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    NEW YORK (WCBS) — The Bronx has one of the highest maternal mortality rates, and now, expecting moms in need of resources are getting access to outreach on wheels.
The “Womb Bus” is a mobile wellness clinic that brings the services of the Birthing Place Foundation to under-represented communities in the Bronx. It is not a birth center, but a place to connect the community with doulas.
Myla Flores is a doula, and founder of the Birthing Place and co-founder of the Womb Bus and the Maryam Reproductive Health and Wellness Clinic.
“It’s very well known that the Bronx is a maternal health care desert,” Flores said. “In New York, we have just a couple birth centers, and zero are midwifery- or BIPOC-led.”
New York City’s Health Department cites studies that show, compared to white and non-Hispanic women, Black women are four times more likely to die of pregnancy complications and six times more likely to die of a pregnancy-related cause, like postpartum suicide or overdose.
“One of the things that we know is that cultural congruent care helps make an impact on the outcomes,” Flores said.
Flores said she’s seen maternal health care inequities firsthand.
“It has been very much a part of our regular engagement, is with families who’ve experienced some type of hardship, be it actual loss,” she said.
The Womb Bus offers an opportunity for new and expecting moms to form a special bond.
Mom Rajhean Patterson found the support she was looking for thanks to the outreach.
“It’s my first time exclusively breastfeeding,” she said. “Definitely challenges as far as feeling like I’m not doing it good enough, and just having that affirmation that I am doing it good enough.”
Expecting mom Courtney Harris Burnett also stopped by the Womb Bus. She met Flores back in 2020 through virtual classes she held on how to prepare for giving birth.
“I feel fortunate enough to kind of break that generational cycle of traumatic births,” Harris Burnett said.
Flores said the Womb Bus is one of several innovative ways they’re trying to reach the community, but the goal is to have a birth center to reach even more people.