Having a baby shouldn’t mean losing your health insurance two months later. Living in a rural community shouldn’t mean driving hours to find maternity care. And getting support from a doula shouldn’t depend entirely on whether you can afford to pay out of pocket.
Those are some of the gaps a federal bill called the CARE for Moms Act is trying to address.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois introduced the latest Senate version, S. 5515, of the Community Access, Resources, and Empowerment for Moms Act on September 24. Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois introduced the current House version, H.R. 6303, in November 2025.
The legislation is broad. Rather than focusing on one part of pregnancy or childbirth, it would change care during pregnancy and for up to a year after birth, while also investing in doulas, rural maternity care, and programs designed to improve the quality of maternal health care.
For Black women, those changes could matter most.
According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 649 women died from maternal causes in the United States in 2024. The maternal mortality rate for Black women was 44.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 14.2 for white women.
That’s more than three times the rate.
“In the U.S., Black women are three times more likely to die as a result of their pregnancy,” Durbin said when announcing the legislation. “It is unacceptable that in this country we are losing mothers and their babies to deaths that could have been prevented with the right interventions and health care.”
So what would the CARE for Moms Act actually do?
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Medicaid Coverage Would Continue for a Full Year After Pregnancy
One of the bill’s biggest parts is also one of the easiest to understand: It would require Medicaid and CHIP to provide full health coverage throughout pregnancy and for 12 months after the pregnancy ends.
That year matters.
Pregnancy-related health problems don’t necessarily disappear once a baby is born. Serious complications can happen weeks or months into the postpartum period, when a new mother may also be dealing with recovery from childbirth, breastfeeding, mental health changes, high blood pressure, or other medical conditions.
The American Rescue Plan of 2021 gave states the option to extend pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage from 60 days postpartum to 12 months. The CARE for Moms Act would make 12 months of coverage a requirement rather than a state-by-state option.
In practical terms, a Medicaid-covered mother wouldn’t have to worry about pregnancy-related eligibility ending just two months after giving birth.
It Would Invest in More Doulas
The bill also puts federal money behind growing and diversifying the doula workforce.
Doulas aren’t doctors or midwives. They generally provide nonmedical support before, during, and after childbirth—helping women understand their options, prepare for birth, communicate with their care team, and navigate the postpartum period.
The CARE for Moms Act would establish grants and contracts to help create and expand doula education and training programs. It would also direct the federal government to give states guidance on covering doula services through Medicaid.
For Black mothers, access to that kind of support can be especially meaningful when concerns about not being heard or taken seriously during pregnancy and childbirth remain common.
It also addresses a practical problem: It’s difficult to expand access to doulas if there aren’t enough trained doulas available—or if families can’t afford their services.
RELATED: 5 Reasons to Consider Having a Doula Before, During and After Pregnancy
It Would Bring Maternity Care to Some Rural Communities
Not every pregnant woman lives near a hospital that delivers babies.
The CARE for Moms Act would establish grants for rural obstetric mobile health units bringing certain pregnancy and postpartum services into rural and underserved communities instead of requiring every patient to travel long distances for care.
The bill would allow those mobile programs to provide services such as preconception, prenatal and postpartum care, and screenings for conditions including hypertension, diabetes, and depression.
It would also require hospitals to give the Department of Health and Human Services advance notice before closing an obstetric unit.
Why does that matter?
When a labor and delivery unit closes, families may suddenly have to travel much farther for prenatal appointments or to give birth. Advance notice doesn’t stop a hospital from closing a unit, but it gives health officials time to identify where another maternity-care gap may be developing.
RELATED: Black Women Are 25% More Likely To Have C-Sections, But Why?
Dental Care Is Part of Maternal Health, Too
One less obvious provision involves dental care.
The bill would require Medicaid and CHIP to cover oral health services during pregnancy and for a year afterward, including preventive, diagnostic, periodontal, and restorative care.
That may sound separate from maternal health, but oral health problems during pregnancy can affect more than someone’s teeth and gums. The legislation specifically recognizes oral health as part of perinatal health and cites evidence linking periodontal disease during pregnancy with complications such as preeclampsia, preterm birth, and low birth weight.
In other words: caring for a pregnant woman’s mouth is caring for her pregnancy.
RELATED: The Power of Prevention: Tips for a Healthier Mouth
The Bill Goes Beyond Individual Doctor Visits
Some parts of the CARE for Moms Act aren’t services a pregnant woman would necessarily see during an appointment.
The legislation would create grants for Perinatal Quality Collaboratives—state or regional groups that bring health professionals, hospitals, public health agencies, and other organizations together to identify problems in maternity care and improve outcomes.
It would also establish regional centers focused on addressing implicit bias and improving culturally competent care among health professionals.
Those provisions recognize something Black maternal health advocates have argued for years: reducing maternal deaths can’t rest entirely on telling individual Black women to speak up for themselves.
How Is This Different From the Mamas First Act?
The CARE for Moms Act comes as Congress is considering other maternal health legislation, including the Mamas First Act, which BlackDoctor recently covered.
The bills overlap, but take different approaches.
Mamas First largely focuses on Medicaid access to maternity care provided by doulas, midwives, Tribal midwives, and lactation support providers. CARE for Moms reaches across several parts of the maternal health system. It addresses year-long postpartum Medicaid coverage, the doula workforce, rural maternity care, hospital obstetric-unit closures, WIC benefits, oral health, and programs designed to improve maternity care.
Put simply, Mamas First focuses heavily on who Medicaid will pay to provide maternity care. CARE for Moms asks a broader question: What does the system need to change to keep mothers healthy during pregnancy and after birth?
Both bills, however, respond to the same larger problem: too many women in the United States are still dying during pregnancy and after childbirth, and Black women continue to bear a disproportionate share of those deaths.
What Happens Next?
Introducing a bill does not mean these changes are law.
Kelly introduced the current House version of the CARE for Moms Act, H.R. 6303, on November 25, 2025, and referred it to the House committees with jurisdiction over different parts of the proposal.
Durbin introduced the Senate version, S. 5515, on September 24, 2026.
The CARE for Moms Act builds on maternal health legislation Durbin and Kelly have pursued for years, including an earlier version introduced in 2023 and the MOMMA Act. The American Rescue Plan included one provision of the MOMMA Act, giving states the option to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to one year.
The CARE for Moms Act would go further by making extended postpartum coverage part of a much broader maternal health strategy.
For Black mothers, the significance isn’t one single program buried inside a 50-plus-page bill.
It’s the combination.
A year of health coverage after pregnancy. More doulas. Better access to care in rural communities. Dental coverage. More attention to bias and quality inside health systems.
None of those changes alone would erase the Black maternal health crisis.
Together, they address something more basic: whether a mother can get the care she needs, where she needs it, and continue receiving it after her baby is born.