Washington, DC – U.S. Representatives Young Kim (CA-40) and Robin Kelly (IL-02), co-chairs of the Maternity Care Caucus, are working together to find bipartisan policy solutions to maternal health and maternal mental health challenges.
Last month, Reps. Kim and Kelly led a letter urging for updates on the effectiveness of the National Maternal Health Hotline.
This year, Rep. Kim also introduced bipartisan bills to expand our nursing workforce, support programs that provide resources for moms and expecting moms with substance abuse disorders, anduplift domestic violence survivors.
Read more about the Maternity Care Caucus in Punchbowl Newsand see highlights below.
Punchbowl News
The Punch Up: Kelly, Kim partner on maternal health issues
By Max Cohen
June 27, 2023
A bipartisan consensus on improving maternal health care is emerging on Capitol Hill at a time when the issue of women’s reproductive rights has deeply divided the nation.
Reps. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) and Young Kim (R-Calif.), the co-chairs of the Maternity Care Caucus, are championing two new bipartisan bills as they seek to show that Congress is united in the need to address the nation’s maternal mortality crisis.
“We want to make sure that there is enough quality health care that is available for mothers, moms to-be, the babies and the families that take care of them,” Kim told us. “These are all resources that we know we can work on and make it available for them.”
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Both Kelly and Kim bring unique perspectives on maternity health. Kim said her experience as a South Korean immigrant allows her to understand how the healthcare system can fail people from different backgrounds.
“As an Asian American, I know that there are resources available,” Kim said. “But they are not getting it to the right people that need it because of the difficulty of understanding what the needs are.”
Maternal health issues personally affected Kim’s family when her daughter lost a child due to miscarriage. “The only answer she got from the doctors is, ‘It’s so common in your generation,’” Kim recounted. “So what is making it so common? We want to get to the bottom of it.”
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