Candace Y.A. Montague

Scientists at Consumer Reports tested synthetic braiding hair recently and announced they found carcinogens and lead in the strands. This hair is commonly used by Black women. Fortunately, there are healthy plant-based hair that can be used to braid hair.

The non-profit's home-visiting program, Mothers Rising, brings maternal and infant care to the doorsteps of underserved communities. This program is proving to improve the birth outcomes for Black infants in DC.

Birth workers, doulas, midwives, and social services providers in the city are working to lower the rate of Black infant death. And the Home Visiting Services Reimbursement Act of 2023, introduced in June by Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, and unanimously approved by the rest of the D.C. Council in January, aims to provide steady funding for an evidence-based home visiting program designed to improve infant health.

My guest appearance on NPR's Moring Edition. I discussed my article series on Black infant demise in the nation's capital.

Washington, DC has the fourth highest stillbirth rate in the nation. How come we don't hear about it more often?

Between 2014 and 2020, more than 330 Black infants died in D.C. before their first birthdays. Recent perinatal reports show this problem isn’t going away anytime soon. Why does this crisis hit the Black community in D.C. so hard and who is working to prevent infant loss? This series is being produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2023 National Fellowship.

Doulas, midwives and other maternal health care workers have been lauded as life saving workers who can mitigate obstetric violence. Can doctors make room for them?

Finding solutions to the maternal and infant mortality crisis can be a confounding task. Are more mothers and babies dying because they lack insurance coverage and don’t have access to good health care providers? Are racial disparities to blame for the fact that Black mothers are dying at three or four times the rate of white mothers?
Could housing be the solution we're overlooking?

Community colleges are one of the best open secrets for physiology and other STEM majors.

Thanks to the passage of the infrastructure bill and the American Rescue Plan, the District is set to receive millions in federal funding with the goal of completely removing lead pipes from its infrastructure by 2030.
However, both the city and advocates say the available money falls far short of what is needed to address the full amount of lead pipes and lead-based paint found in properties and public space across DC.

A 2005 law states that expectant mothers with no minor children who are experiencing homelessness are not eligible for private, family shelter until their third trimester. Until then, they must stay in crowded, low barrier shelters. How does that affect the maternal mortality crisis in DC?

The media’s practice of constantly referring to that clandestine and abusive experiment as the primary reason for vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans is myopic. At best, it has turned into a lazy form of shorthand for a long and complex history. At worst, the trope writes off Black people as apathetic victims.

Is it a new day at the American Medical Association?
The influential AMA and more than 600 members of its House of Delegates have officially recognized racism as a public health threat and race as a social construct instead of a biological one.
But some activist medical students say the statement is late and empty.