Virginia Union Launches Program To Address Maternal Mortality – First Certification Of Its Type At An HBCU

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Virginia Union University recently launched a new six-week certification program that will address the high rate of maternal mortality. It is the first program of its type at an HBCU – the Doula Certification Program.

A doula is a trained professional who supports a mother before, during and after she’s had a baby. Virginia Union’s new six-week certification program aims to offer specialized training and increase the number of certified doulas who can offer non-biased, culturally competent care to expectant families across the Commonwealth.

Nationwide, Black women in the U.S. died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than White women around the time of childbirth in 2023. And Black infants were three times more likely to die than White infants or more likely to be born prematurely during the same period.

In Virginia, the maternal mortality rate for Black women is 47.2 deaths for every 100,000 pregnancy, more than twice the rate for White women (18.1 percent). According to a recent Virginia Department of Health report, nearly 50 percent of all pregnancies in Virginia are unplanned.

This highlights the importance of access to comprehensive contraceptive options for all women of reproductive age.

Felicia D. Cosby, dean of Virginia Union Technical College, said in a recent statement on the school’s website, “As we launch this pioneering Doula Certification Program, we are taking a bold step toward transforming Black maternal and infant healthcare in Virginia. This program is more than training – it is about saving lives, reducing disparities, and empowering communities.”

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While the doula certification program is new, the effort to save Black mothers and their newborn babies is not new. Decades after slavery ended, hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, and eugenics programs sterilized them. Worse, doctors are more likely to tell Black women who disproportionately suffer from fibroids that the only solution for their suffering is a hysterectomy – the surgical removal of the uterus.

In 2018, New York removed and relocated a Central Park statue of J. Marion Sims, a 19th-century gynecologist who experimented on enslaved women. 

Sims repeatedly conducted painful experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women without using anesthesia. As Sims’ statue was moved to a cemetery in Brooklyn, Harlem resident Mercy Wellington told the New York Daily, “I feel that my ancestors can rest. Each day I walked past that statue and I saw him up there. I felt personally disrespected … It’s a historical moment for me, and it’s an emotional moment. I just feel the right thing is being done.”

Now, “Black women are twice as likely to develop severe maternal sepsis, as compared to their white counterparts,” a 2023 Associated Press report noted. “Common symptoms can include fever or pain in the area of infection. Sepsis can develop quickly, so a timely response is crucial.”

“Sepsis in its early stages can mirror common pregnancy symptoms, so it can be hard to diagnose,” the Associated Press noted. “Due to a lack of training, some medical providers don’t know what to look for. But slow or missed diagnoses are also the result of bias, structural racism in medicine and inattentive care that leads to patients, particularly Black women, not being heard,” the report noted.

Dr. Laura Riley, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, told the Associated Press, “The way structural racism can play out in this particular disease is not being taken seriously. We know that delay in diagnosis is what leads to these really bad outcomes.”

This is where Virginia Union’s new doula certification program comes in. Supported by Birth In Color and the Virginia Department of Health, VUU’s new six-month certification program focuses on expanding Allied Health certifications, beginning with phlebotomy and CPR training.

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