A group of congressional Democrats on Wednesday unveiled legislation that aims to tackle the nation’s maternal mortality crisis—which disproportionately affects black and Native American women—by promoting community-based, holistic healthcare for pregnant women and new moms.

“Maternal justice is about ensuring that every mom-to-be is listened to and treated with dignity and respect during and after childbirth.”
—Rep. Ayanna Pressley

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-Mass.), the lead sponsors, introduced the bill just a day after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released an “absolutely devastating” report that revealed the country’s maternal mortality rate is rising, most of those deaths are preventable, and black and Native American women are three times more likely than their white peers to die of pregnancy-related causes.

“It is unacceptable that the Unites States, the wealthiest country on Earth, has the highest maternal mortality rate [of] any developed nation in the world,” Pressley said in a series of tweets. The congresswoman, a founding member of the new Black Maternal Health Caucus, called the racial disparities in maternal deaths “unconscionable.”

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The Healthy MOMMIES Act—short for Maximizing Outcomes for Moms through Medicaid Improvement and Enhancement of Services—features several provisions designed to reverse the rising rate of maternal deaths by expanding and improving healthcare coverage.

Specifically, as a fact sheet (pdf) from Pressley’s office outlined, the bill intends to curb the national crisis by:

• Expanding Medicaid coverage to include a full range of services to ensure people have access to comprehensive care throughout pregnancy, labor, and postpartum.
• Granting access to primary healthcare providers by extending the Affordable Care Act’s primary care bump for Medicaid beneficiaries.
• Establishing a maternity care home model demonstration project.
• Encouraging Medicaid to include access to community-based doula care.
• Studying telemedicine as a mechanism for increasing access to maternity care.