- [Narrator] Coming up on "One Detroit," we'll have a special report on the high number of pregnancy-related deaths in Michigan.

Impossible solutions.

Also ahead, the human services agency Judson Center celebrates 100 years of providing care in the community.

And we'll let you know what's going on around town this weekend.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

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(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Just ahead on "One Detroit," a nonprofit that has changed the lives of thousands of children, families, and adults marks a milestone anniversary.

And we'll give you some ideas on how you can spend this weekend in Metro Detroit.

But first up, a report on the rising number of maternal deaths in Michigan.

Earlier this year, The Detroit News published a front page story about the problem, produced through the New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative.

"One Detroit" has been working with the newspaper and the collaborative to find out why pregnancy-related deaths are higher here compared to other states.

"One Detroit's" Bill Kubota teamed up at the reporter for the Detroit news story, Hayley Harding, to look for possible solutions to an issue that disproportionately affects Black women.

(upbeat music) - [Bill] On Detroit's East Side, Sade Dortch, she's expecting.

- Here is baby's room, baby to be.

- [Bill] Due in just a few weeks, age 29.

She works for Amazon Flex.

So you got the name for your baby.

- Baby Nevaeh.

It is heaven spelt backwards.

- [Bill] Her first child, 12-year-old son Rico doing fine, but less than a perfect start.

Dortch, then 16, giving birth at the hospital.

- The nurses felt by me being young, I couldn't tell the difference between the time to push and just me being dumb from the epidural that was given to me during the process.

And when she told me to do a practice push, she noticed I was crowning and she told me to stop.

- [Bill] Dortch said she stopped pushing, told to wait for the doctor who had stepped out to see another patient.

- That was kind of like a doozy right there, just running in between each client trying to help each person.

So at that time my son had got stuck, and I had to have a double episiotomy if I said that word correctly, just to get him out.

- [Bill] Dortch said they didn't listen that the epidural wasn't a problem, believing her son wouldn't have gotten stuck had she just kept pushing instead of waiting.

And she thinks she could have avoided that episiotomy.

- Clap your hands, everybody.

- [Bill] Looking to head off problematic pregnancies like Dortch's, that's the focus of this March of Dimes event, raising money and awareness in Pontiac this summer.

- What needs to be done is more attention to the plight really of motherhood in America.

It is one of the most dangerous places to give birth.

- [Bill] Nationally, the March of Dimes has been tracking statistics and rating the states.

Michigan's infant mortality rate is 6.4 per 1,000 live births where the national average is 5.6, ranking 34th, far from the worst, but room for improvement.

Earlier this year, Hayley Harding wrote an in-depth story for The Detroit News looking at maternal deaths and reporting on possible solutions to the problem.

- At every two minutes, a mother dies during pregnancy or childbirth.

That's around the world.

- [Bill] Harding's talking with Dr. Sonia Hassan, obstetrics and gynecology professor at Wayne State University, where she's also associate Vice President of the Office of Women's Health.

- Why is it that we have such a higher rate of Black women dying specifically?

And I know this is true across the country, but it's also very, very evident in Michigan.

Why is that?

- It is true across the country, and as you say, yes, it's about almost a three times higher risk to women that can die who are Black in pregnancy or related to pregnancy.

There are things like preeclampsia that are higher rates in Black women.

Preterm birth is higher rates in Black women, and some of those fundamental medical issues have to be taken care of.

- [Bill] Reporting for The Detroit News, Harding found the Michigan deaths connected to pregnancy on the rise by 33% from 2019 to 2020, the latest year statistics were available from the state.

And in Michigan, there are between 80 and 90 maternal deaths a year.

- In Michigan, we know two thirds of those are preventable, and so causes range from high blood pressure, from bleeding, from infection, from other issues with excessive care for example.

All of those things can play into it.

It's a really large problem, but it's something we've gotta really change.

- [Bill] Another big problem, access to care.

Getting mothers-to-be in for checkups seems more like a logistical challenge, - Whereas we have a number of hospital systems, they're difficult for people to get to.

And so you have inaccessibility to healthcare, you have transportation issues, you have women who simply don't receive prenatal care for a variety of reasons.

- [Bill] The risks for Black mothers, that's on Asia Lovelady's mind.

"One Detroit" first met her at her baby shower in July.

- I wanted a African American provider and there's not a lot of them.

- [Bill] Lovelady and her fiance, Al Criswell, live in Ypsilanti where they did find a provider that they were comfortable with.

- So that's what I wanted in my pregnancy, somebody that can listen to me, understand me.

If I'm having questions and if I'm freaking out, they just know what to say and how to say it.

You try not to put race into it too much, but it's kind of hard not to a lot of times.

- [Bill] Lovelady works in healthcare administration, but for her, red flags went up over a medical issue unrelated to pregnancy that made her wary of the system.

- If you one of those quiet, shy people like I used to be, you can't do that no longer.

Not when it's dealing with your health.

- [Bill] Healthcare disparities.

Is there a solution?

Part of it may be in California, which found itself facing a rising maternal death rate 18 years ago.

- In fact, the numbers in 2006 I believe were about double what they had been in the late '90s.

So it was quite a rise.

- [Bill] Dr. Deirdre Lyell, a professor at Stanford Medicine, co-chairs the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, CMQCC, created to fight that rising death rate.

According to the March of Dimes, these days, the Golden State's death rate is lower than most.

- People quickly understood that the two biggest opportunities were around hemorrhage and hypertension.

So hemorrhage when someone really bleeds a lot in labor and delivery.

What CMQCC did was identifying these two areas, created toolkits, and those are essentially standardization of care.

And once you've standardized how a unit, a labor and delivery unit say responds, and also who else needs to be at that table, then you can really start to make progress.

Well in California in fact found that by 2016, the rate of maternal death had a fallen by 65%, which is a pretty remarkable number.

- [Bill] The CMQCC has recruited medical providers, most every hospital across the state all working off the same page.

- What would you recommend that other states looking to address maternal mortality do to try to get their numbers down?

- One core element is data.

And in California, we have the Maternal Data Center that's run through CMQCC, and that provides hospitals, 211 of our hospitals, nearly 99 of births in California are members and get data through the Maternal Data Center.

Once you have data, that's really powerful, because then you can start with your quality improvement initiative, which CMQCC helps to lead with hospitals to to track how you're doing, are you making a difference?

Are you using every tool at your disposal?

- [Bill] Maya Bragg and family at home in Detroit's new center area, recently back home from California.

- I've had a cesarean, I've had a all natural birth, birthing center, and I've also had a hospital medicated birth with her.

So all three have been different.

- [Bill] Her latest born in Detroit, her oldest born in Detroit too.

But her middle child, she arrived as an all-natural birth.

For Bragg in Los Angeles, it just made sense.

- Majority of my friends in LA are very knowledgeable about alternatives regarding birth, and so I thought that like a holistic birth would be a good experience.

- [Bill] A birth not at a hospital, but at a birthing center in LA run by midwives, trained professionals focused on the birthing process.

- I was like, I know that people in Detroit don't know about this or don't have access to it.

- [Bill] When Bragg and her family moved back, she sought out Birth Detroit, which runs a maternal health clinic in the city's Fitzgerald neighborhood.

Birth Detroit's co-founders advocate for better maternal care, that includes more midwives and doulas who also assist mothers to be.

- We're not doing enough prenatal care, we don't spend enough time with our patients and our clients.

We don't do what is done all around the world for postpartum care, which is treating the mother and baby together and seeing them four or five times.

In the United States, you leave the hospital and you don't even get seen until six weeks.

- [Bill] In the Birth Detroit waiting room, Mhlelusizo Ncube, native of Zimbabwe, who's expecting soon.

So how many times have you been here so far?

- At the Birth Detroit?

Ah, I can't count, but maybe seven, eight times, I think so.

- [Bill] Since when?

How many months back?

- I came here in September.

- [Bill] Okay, so you've been doing regular checkups then.

- Baby's active, baby's been moving lately.

- We ask our clients how they're doing.

We make sure that all their needs are met socially with baby.

We measure the belly, we make sure we listen to baby's heart rate, make sure everything is okay with the baby, ask questions, concerns, and then figure out how we can support them on the rest of their pregnancy journey.

- [Bill] Studies cited by the World Health Organization and others show maternal mortality can be reduced when more midwives are involved.

- With high risk pregnancies, we can always refer out to different outside hospitals.

We can always refer our patients to wherever they wanna go if we need a second opinion or we wanna just have somebody lay eyes on the patients as well.

- Next, come on up.

- [Bill] Birth Detroit's other location just off Grand River Avenue a bit south of Joy Road on the west side.

It's October 2024.

A celebration for Detroit's first soon to be open freestanding birthing center, a place to give birth that's not a hospital.

New from the ground up with staff, visitors, and dignitaries taking part.

- You build institutions like this one that recognize that the act of birthing is at its core, the most natural, the most human thing that we do.

And if we can't do it for everyone with the kind of grace and dignity and justice that folks deserve, then we gotta start thinking differently about that.

And that's institutional, and that's what we're here to celebrate today.

(crowd cheering) - In fact, we need to do some things fundamentally different in our system, and that is what we are daring to do at Birth Detroit.

- I think we're changing culture with what we're doing and showing people you can have this, you can be a midwife, you can have a baby at a birth center, you can work at a birth center, and folks look like you doing this too.

- [Bill] Along with raising the millions needed to build the center, the Birth Detroit co-founders have been pushing for new laws intended to improve maternal health statewide.

- This package of bills came out of those conversations and is really community-led and community-driven, community-centered.

- [Bill] The bills together called the Michigan Momnibus Package, which does things like track data to better reveal inequities in obstetric care and pay licensed midwives for work done with state programs.

- Senator Hoitenga?

Senator Damoose?

- This bill package should help close that gap.

When Black and brown birthing people, when they know they have that support system, when they know they have that network of people who are going to be supportive of their journey and that they'll be listened to and won't be dismissed.

There's way too many stories of birthing people not being listened to.

- [Bill] October 2024, the legislation moves forward.

- Very happy to see the Momnibus rolling out of committee.

And thank you again to Senator Geiss and all the advocates here who've been so helpful over the months on developing this legislation.

- [Bill] What's next?

That's a big political wait and see, but also October '24, this announcement in Detroit.

- Today, we are announcing in Michigan that the leading health systems and universities are joining together for the first time to stop moms and babies from dying.

- [Bill] The SOS Maternity Network, led by Wayne State University's Dr. Sonia Hassan, includes 14 institutions to be meeting regularly with the financial support from the state of Michigan along with Priority Health and Wayne State.

- I'd like to see continued collaboration among providers in Southeast Michigan.

I'd love to see that expanded statewide so that moms and families everywhere have access to the care that they need when they're pregnant and after they give birth.

- [Bill] Hospitals working together to decrease preterm birth, the leading cause of infant mortality in Michigan, according to Dr. Hassan.

Another mission, bring down the rate of preeclampsia, pregnancy-related high blood pressure that can also lead to very bad outcomes.

- The one thing that startles people or a couple of things is everything that happens in utero to a person determines a lot of their medical history in their life later in their life.

So in that pregnancy, in that one pregnancy where you have two patients, first, if the baby is born preterm, that baby is known to have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity later in its life.

That is a known thing.

In addition for the pregnant woman, if she has a preeclamptic pregnancy or she's preterm birth, she is also at high risk to have heart disease, cardiovascular complications in her life, even 10 to 20 years later.

- [Bill] On Detroit's East Side, Sade Dortch gets a head start, packing a go bag for the big day when daughter Nevaeh arrives.

- I'm just hoping that I can get through my delivery safely and soundly and we both walk out of the hospital together, and whatever life may bring from there, only time will tell.

- [Narrator] The human services agency Judson Center is celebrating a major milestone this year.

The organization is marking 100 years of helping children, families, and adults live better lives.

Judson Center offers autism, foster care, adoption, behavioral and physical healthcare, and disability services.

"American Black Journal" host and "One Detroit" contributor Stephen Henderson spoke with Judson Center president and CEO Lenora Hardy Foster about the agency's history and impact in the community.

(upbeat music) - So a hundred years of the Judson Center, that is an awfully long time.

Tell me what this centennial anniversary means for the center and for the many, many people that it serves.

- We are so excited.

When you think about being a nonprofit human service provider that has been able to sustain ourselves for a hundred years, that means so much to us.

I think if anything, it tells about a nonprofit that has been creative and innovative over those hundred years.

We first started in 1924, opened the doors as an orphanage for boys and girls.

And the birth of Judson Center came from a group of Baptist ministers that wanted to do good for children.

And we remain true to that to this day.

One of our core programs is foster care and adoption.

But when I think about, Stephen, over these hundred years, the difference that we have been able to make in the lives of so many children, adults, and families, we serve over 14,000 annually.

So think about 1924, small, small nonprofit.

The name was the Detroit Baptist Home for Children.

And 60 years into this wonderful organization, we changed the name in 1984 to Judson Center.

And if I could just share the things that we are sure we have been able to accomplish over the hundred years, which is so remarkable.

And I think that's where all of our pride and joy comes from, to know that being an agency that really believes in working with children and trying to help them find that forever home is so important to us.

But we are about community.

What are other things that we can do within community that is really gonna make a difference and be able to impact so many lives?

Over those years, we've expanded into disabilities.

We believe in individuals with a disability no matter what it may be.

If they're diagnosed with a mental illness, if they're on the autism spectrum, if they are in a wheelchair, that they should be given an opportunity the same as you and I to become an employee one day.

So our disabilities program provides soft skills training, supported employment and help them to find and secure a job.

Then we expanded into behavioral health.

And today, we're so proud.

We have an integrated care model, and we are one of the CCBHCs here in the great state of Michigan, that stands for Certified Community Behavior Health Clinic.

It's an integrated model that includes behavior health, primary healthcare, and substance use disorder.

And then our autism program.

We're so proud that we can make a difference in the lives of so many children that are diagnosed with autism.

We have five locations, and so over those hundred years, we've expanded.

We started right there in Oakland County, in Royal Oak, the corner of 13 Mile in Greenfield a hundred years ago.

We're still there today.

That's our largest campus.

But we have almost 10 locations that are spread over five counties.

We've moved into Washtenaw, to Wayne, to Macomb, to Genesee.

And we have one program, which is a foster care program that is statewide, the MARE, the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange.

We are proud of the success and things that we've been able to accomplish over the hundred years, and the joy that we see in the faces of the people we serve.

- And so let's look forward a little bit, the next hundred years, but of course starting with the next year and the next five years, what are the things that you anticipate that the Judson Center will need or will need to do going into that second century?

- A hundred years from now, we wanna still be an organization that is here doing good in the communities that we impact.

But let's say during those first five years, right now we have a major capital campaign that's taken place, that location, 13 Mile in Greenfield where we've been for a hundred years, we have a capital campaign that we really want to redo that campus.

It is time for a major overhaul, a uplift to expand on that location, to fix up that location, to make sure folks know who we are and what we're doing.

So that's huge for the first five years.

In addition to that, I talked about the CCBHC model.

That is a model right now that was really started by our very own senator Debbie Stabenow was able to get that passed through Congress back in 2015.

Her and Senator Roy Blunt out of Missouri.

That model is being adopted right now in about 40 states.

Everybody loves that model.

So what we see our challenge for the next five years, our largest integrated program operates out of Warren, Michigan in Macomb County.

We are replicating that in Royal Oak.

So that's a part of that capital campaign.

We wanna make sure that we can have an integrated model.

We do behavioral healthcare now, but we wanna expand it with primary healthcare and substance use disorder.

Stephen, when we talk about things that have happened during the pandemic that has impacted us and things that we've learned that needs more attention, substance use disorder.

Our children and our adults, very high in Macomb County.

So high numbers of children and adults that need those services, and we are also gonna replicate it in Wayne County.

- [Narrator] The holidays are fast approaching, and Metro Detroit is getting into the spirit with some of the events taking place over the next few days.

Cecelia Sharpe of 90.9 WRCJ has the details in today's "One Detroit Weekend."

- Hi, I'm Cecelia Sharpe with 90.9 WRCJ here to help you plan your days ahead with great events happening in Metro Detroit.

You know this is the time of year when holiday lights start brightening up our nights.

On November 22nd, our city's official tree started sparkling during the 21st annual Detroit tree lighting at Campus Martius.

In addition to the main event are live music performances, skating showcases, and more.

Speaking of skating, did you know you can ice skate under black lights?

At Suburban Ice Macomb, They turn their ice rink into a party on select Friday and Saturday nights, and that includes tomorrow and Saturday, November 23rd.

Through November 24th, the hilarious Broadway show "Mean Girls" is playing at the Fisher Theatre.

The Detroit Public Theatre hosts the All-City Poetry Slam 2024, the finals on Sunday, November 24th, where the 12 finalists will compete for the grand prize.

Monday, November 25th is Detroit Aglow, presented by Amazon at the MGM Grand Detroit.

The benefit for the Downtown Detroit partnership will once again bring great food and good times to those attending.

And you know there's even more events than what I've discussed.

So stay tuned for a few more options.

Have a fantastic and fun-filled weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] That'll do it for this week's "One Detroit."

Thanks for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit website for all the stories we are working on.

Follow us on social media, and please sign up for our weekly newsletter.

- [Announcer] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia and Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Announcer] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan-focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Announcer] Nissan Foundation, and viewers like you.

(upbeat music) (bright music)