Indiana’s progress in reducing infant mortality is welcome news. But testimony last Thursday before an interim Study Committee on Public Health, Behavioral Health and Human Services shows the numbers obscure a cruel truth: Black mothers in Indiana remain at grave risk, and racial inequities in maternal mortality persist nationwide and at home. As the committee resumes work later this month, lawmakers cannot afford to treat “mothers” as a monolith.

According to a 2025 Commonwealth Fund analysis, Indiana’s maternal mortality rate is 39.9 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births, which is more than twice the national average. Both state and national rates remain higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

For Black women, the odds are far worse. In 2023, the U.S. maternal mortality ra

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