After a years-long campaign, the Murphy administration broke ground Tuesday on a new maternal health facility, planted in the heart of the state’s capital.
The Maternal and Infant Health Innovation Center is the culmination of first lady Tammy Murphy’s effort to confront one of New Jersey’s most urgent health crises: the racial disparities that exist for maternal and infant health outcomes among Black and brown families. Through her Nurture NJ initiative, Murphy has been working to reverse the deep inequities in care — which have resulted in New Jersey’s Black mothers being nearly seven times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white mothers. Hispanic women are three to five times more likely to die while pregnant, delivering a baby or in the postpartum period when compared to white women, according to state data.
The new center in Trenton is being built with the help of $75 million, much of it from federal aid provided during the COVID-19 pandemic. The facility is planned for the corner of Pennington Avenue and Warren Street, next to the Henry J. Austin Center, a busy community clinic. And will also be home to reproductive health research and workforce development efforts led by Rutgers School of Nursing. And a support-service hub run by the Trenton Health Team, a nonprofit dedicated to improving health in the city.
In an interview with NJ Spotlight News, Murphy said she was encouraged by the state’s progress but conceded there’s still more work to do.
“In terms of maternal mortality rates we’ve gone from 47th in the country to 28th since 2018. We’ve also moved on infant mortality from 5th to 2nd,” said Murphy. “And on neonatal mortality we’ve moved from 6th to 1st, but there are myriad benchmarks at this point in time.”
Murphy pointed to services offered by the center as a means for moving the needle.
“The center is anchored by three different tenants,” she said. “We have Rutgers School of Nursing, we have Capital Health and we have Trenton Teamworks. And those three work hand-in-hand to not only provide education for the perinatal workforce training … as well as a data collaborative … but also obviously Capital Health will be the provider of all clinical services, the wraparound services will also be directed and enabled with the community together with Trenton Teamworks.”
In this week’s episode of our “Hey, NJ” podcast, health care writer Lilo H. Stainton joins hosts Maddi Ference and John P. McAlpin to discuss New Jersey’s maternal health crisis, improvements and more. Listen here.
