Momnibus Bill in Oregon aims to help pregnant families, kids

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Roberta Suzette Hunte had signs of early labor when she was 22 weeks pregnant. When she went to the emergency room, staff there dismissed her.

"'Here's some medicine, here's some pain reliever,'" Hunte said she was told. "'Go home.'"

But hours later she called the maternity ward in agony in the middle of the night.

"I was having contractions and they said, 'There's nothing wrong with you. You've got a stomach bug. Go to the emergency room. You don't need to come to maternity.'"

But there was something wrong. Her unborn baby Isadora became a stillborn statistic.

"I had a placental abruption. And the placental abruption is what ended the pregnancy," she said. "Black birthing people are two times more likely to have adverse birth experiences, including loss."

During her next two pregnancies, Hunte—who holds a PhD and is an assistant professor at Portland State University—joined Multnomah County's Healthy Birth Initiative, a program addressing perinatal health disparities, especially for African-American families. It zeroes in on addressing health inequities like low birth weight and infant mortality.

"I had the experience of doulas in both pregnancies and became a lot more aware of what good care can look like," she told KOIN 6 News, thanks to the additional resources she received.

She realized the loss of Isadora was a health care systems failure. Now her life mission is to hold the system accountable, to "help it, encourage it, force it to change."

Hunte, of Black Futures of Perinatal Health and Children’s Institute, alongside other leaders, has been working with lawmakers to bring the craft a bill that will improve outcomes for moms and babies.

Oregon State Senator Lisa Reynolds, a pediatrician and policy maker, said the child welfare statistics in the state are as grim as the stats for the US as a whole.

"The United States, among wealthy nations, has the highest rate of maternal morbidity and mortality. It's kind of shocking to realize that," Reynolds said. "When we look at the demographic that's at highest risk for eviction, guess what it is? It's babies. And to me, that's just kind of shame on all of us."

In this Oregon legislative session, Reynolds is aiming to break the cycles of poverty, addiction, illiteracy and mental illness. And she says that starts at conception.

"I've known this as a pediatrician and it's only been brought home as a legislator," she said, "we do better with upstream investments and preventative spending."

She's introducing her Momnibus 2025 Bill Package with four key directives to support families during pregnancy and a child's first year of life:

• Safe and stable housing through rental assistance, affordable housing
• Maternal behavioral health support with addiction treatment, behavioral health care
• Poverty reduction strategies, like child tax credits and financial aid programs
• Expand perinatal workforce, diversifying and adding roles like doulas and lactation consultants in state statutes, increasing Medicaid and private insurance coverage for these services

Reynolds said investments like these can prevent babies from ending up in the foster care system.

"If we can get ahead of that, we're going to save a lot of lives and see much improved outcomes," the lawmaker said.

The Momnibus Bill, which she will introduce on the first day of this legislative session, has a lot of bipartisan support in the state Capitol, she said.

"The real question is going to be, do we have the courage to truly invest in these preventative upstream services while we are also having to deal with a lot of crises?" Reynolds questioned.

Advocates, like Roberta Suzette Hunte, say lawmakers must envision a proactive future so that losses like she experienced can be prevented.

"I think about what it meant to lose this child that I wanted to have and was taken from me," she said.

And that's what drives Lisa Reynolds.

"Oregon could be the very best place in the country to be pregnant, to birth a child and to raise a child. That is really my dream," the senator said.