I am Legislator Jewel Williams Johnson, Chair of the Board of Legislators Committee on Health, and we are officially open this opening this meetingslash town hall at 2.24 p.m.

Okay.

Now that we're done with the formality, I want to take a few minutes to sincerely welcome you all to our one, two, three, four, fifth town hall.

Our fifth birth equity, respectful care town hall, pushing the needle further.

I'm so grateful to see everyone in the room with including hospital leaders, community partners, advocates, providers, doers, public health professionals, policymakers, and residents who understand that birth equity is not a slogan, it's not a trend, it's not a meeting topic.

It is a life and death public health imperative.

Today we gather with a very clear purpose to share best practices, to strengthen hospital and community partnerships, to center the needs of birthing women and people to better understand the data, to elevate programs that are already making a difference, and to identify what our hospitals and communities need from need, what they both need from our county, state, and federal government to improve outcomes.

In other words, today is about what collaboration looks like when lives are on the line.

And I want to begin by offering my sincere thanks to the extraordinary, the extraordinary team that continues to make this work happen and hold all of us accountable.

To Dr.

Cheryl Brannan, president and founder of Sister to Sister International.

Thank you, Cheryl.

Thank you for your vision.

Thank you for your persistence and relentless commitment to women and families across our county and even beyond.

You have never allowed this work to become ceremonial.

You push us to move from conversation to commitment and from commitment to action and from action to measurable change.

To Cheryl Hunter Grant, Beryl Weaver, and Erica Williams, thank you for the dedication, expertise, preparation, coordination, and heart you bring to this effort.

You help carry the details, the relationships, the urgency, and the accountability.

You remind us that this work must never become abstract because behind every statistic is a woman, a baby, a family, and a story.

He'll be here soon, but I want to also extend and offer a huge thank you to our Westchester County executive, Ken Jenkins, County Executive Jenkins.

He understands, yeah.

He understands the charge.

That maternal health is not a side issue, and birth equity, it's not optional.

This is about saving lives, especially the lives of women of color who are wishing and hoping to have children.

Start a family, extend a family, and live long enough to watch those children and families thrive.

That is the goal, not simply pregnancy, not simply delivery, but life, wellness, dignity, and thriving beyond birth.

I'm also deeply grateful to our birthing hospitals for being on board, receptive, totally engaged, and very willing partners.

We cannot improve birth outcomes unless our hospitals are at the table with humility, honesty, data, and commitment.

Today we will hear directly about what is working, what must be strengthened, and how hospital and community partnerships can improve care before, during, and after birth.

And to our Department of Health under the dedicated leadership of Commissioner Dr.

Shalita Amler, I want to say that Westchester is extremely fortunate.

The department is in spectacular hands.

Dr.

Amler brings a steady, serious, and deeply experienced public health lens to what that requires, both compassion and precision.

Today's agenda reflects the depth of what this moment demands.

We will hear about community support, team birth, the Westchester Black Maternal and Child Center of Excellence, the National Institute for Children's Health Quality, and its community-centered hospital initiative, postpartum hemorrhage, data evaluation, and proposed legislation related to leave after pregnancy loss and postpartum recovery.

Each of these pieces matters because no single intervention can solve a problem this complex.

Birth equity is like a quilt.

One patch alone does not warm anyone.

It is only when the pieces are stitched together, hospital care, community trust, data, respectful communication, legislation, mental health support, doers, physicians, nurses, and lived experiences, that we create something strong enough to cover and protect families in our county.

For me, this issue is not only professional, it is deeply personal.

I did not come to birth equity only through policy.

I came to it through pain.

I know what it is to want a child so deeply that hope becomes part of your daily routine.

I know what it is to endure several miscarriages.

I know what it is to go through egg retrievals, several failed in vitro fertilization attempts, and still try to find the courage to hope again.

I know the private anguish of watching other women become mothers and feeling genuinely happy for them while also feeling that quiet ache that asks, why not me?

I know the jealousy you do not want to admit.

I know the depression and mental anguish that can follow when your body, your prayers, your science, your faith, and your calendar, they all seem to be working together, and still the answer is no.

And I know one moment I'll never forget.

I was in, I was on an examination table, my feet up in stirrups, believing I was carrying life.

When I was told over the phone by a doctor I had never met, whose voice was cutting in and out as she wrote an elevator that there was no heartbeat.

There are moments when the body is present, but the spirit feels like it has left the room.

That was one of those moments.

And even now, years later, there's still a little twinge when someone asks if I have children or assumes that I do have children.

For the person asking, it may be a simple question.

For some of us, it opens an entire room of memories.

I share that not to center myself, but to center the truth that how we treat women in these moments matters.

The words matter, the room matters, the timing matters, the tone matters, the follow-up matters, the handoff matters, the data matters, the discharge instructions matter, the phone call matters.

The assumption that every pregnancy journey is simple, joyful, or ends the way we prayed it would, must be challenged.