Overview:
HB26-1044 heads to committee Feb. 25 as advocates push to close gaps in Black maternal health care across Colorado.
As Black History Month brings renewed attention to racial disparities in health care, Colorado lawmakers are preparing to debate new legislation aimed at closing persistent gaps in maternal care for Black people.
House Bill 26-1044, “Measures to Improve Black Maternal Health Equity,” was introduced Jan. 14 and is scheduled to be heard by the House Health & Human Services Committee on Feb. 25. The bill would introduce new accountability measures for providers, require cultural competency training for obstetric staff and mandate investigations into cases where racial bias may have contributed to severe maternal morbidity or death.
The proposal comes as advocates warn that Black people in Colorado face significantly higher rates of pregnancy-related complications and death than the general population, with disparities that persist regardless of income or education level.
“I remember thinking, if this is how they’re treating me right now, I cannot imagine how they would treat me if I were actually giving birth,” said Karen Sandoval, a local doula. “It really opened my eyes to how much support and advocacy birthing people of color need in the hospital system.”
More than 75% of maternal deaths in Colorado are considered preventable, yet advocates say systemic inequities in health care continue to put Black mothers at disproportionate risk. In response, grassroots organizations, doulas and policy advocates across the Front Range have been working for years to address what many describe as a generational cycle of inequity in maternal care.
One of those advocates is Velveta Golightly-Howell, Colorado’s first Black female prosecutor and CEO of Sister-to-Sister: International Network of Professional African American Women, Incorporated, who has spent decades advancing Black maternal and mental health equity across the state.
“Our overarching goal is to save lives because Black women continue to die,” Golightly-Howell said. “Black babies continue to die if they’re born before they’re even one year old.”
In 2024, Golightly-Howell began working with state representatives Regina English and Junie Joseph, alongside UCHealth, the University of Colorado College of Nursing and the Mile High Medical Society, to support HB26-1044, which was introduced in January 2026.
“We saw a problem, decided it needed to be addressed, developed solutions and decided to move forward,” Golightly-Howell said.
The bill establishes a number of maternal health equity requirements, including morbidity investigations and enforcement, a statewide survey, health oversight and reporting, medical professional training requirements and publicly available data. It would also require Colorado’s maternal health task force to include at least one Black maternal health advocate, as well as funding for culturally responsive doulas and midwives.
For community-based organizations like Soul 2 Soul Sisters, policy solutions are only one part of the equation. Niyankor Ajuaj, communication, storytelling and narrative manager for the group, said their work is grounded in reproductive justice.
“Overall, a lot of our work is really more so just grounded around reproductive justice as a whole and how we can actualize that and practice that as an organization,” Ajuaj said.
Soul 2 Soul Sisters supports the Sacred Seed Black Birthworker Collective of Colorado Directory, which connects families with culturally responsive doulas and birth workers. One of those providers is Celeste Pegues-Rios of Light as a Feather, a full-spectrum doula with more than a decade of experience.
“The beautiful part of being a birth worker and a doula is because it’s like, it’s so relevant to everything and it’s all so interconnected,” Pegues-Rios said. “Because we work in a system that does not serve Black women well, doulas have been kind of used as a band-aid for the oppression and the systematic racism that’s within the hospital systems.”
For providers like Sandoval of Planita Soul LLC, maternal health access also includes abortion care and postpartum support. “When we talk about maternal health access, we talk about abortion access,” Sandoval said. “For Black and brown folks, there are so many barriers that impact all of that.”
Sandoval said her work supporting predominantly Spanish-speaking and Latinx families has revealed how gaps in culturally competent care continue to affect underrepresented communities navigating miscarriage, abortion and postpartum care. She, too, experienced a lack of support from medical providers while navigating her own reproductive care, beginning with a miscarriage and later with an abortion, which is a fairly common occurrence among underrepresented populations.
“People have the right to not have children and be parents in a safe environment,” Sandoval said. “When I support someone through an abortion, it’s really not about me at all. The advocacy piece is critical, and if anything has influenced the work I do, it’s ensuring that someone understands their rights when they leave.”
While HB26-1044 represents a potential policy response at the state level, advocates say legislative action is only one piece of a broader movement that will come into sharper focus during Black Maternal Health Week. Held annually from April 11–17 and led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Black Maternal Health Week is intended to elevate community-driven policy and care solutions that center Black mothers and families.
“Over the years, we [Sister-to-Sister] have collected data that showed how important the crisis in Black maternal health is,” Golightly-Howell said. “We have developed solutions and have moved forward with the implementation of the solutions.”
For advocates like Golightly-Howell, the momentum behind Black Maternal Health Week and HB26-1044 reflects a shared goal: addressing disparities not only through legislation but also by reshaping how maternal care is delivered across the state. She said policy change is essential to ensuring that the culturally responsive care models community organizations have long championed can be sustained within Colorado’s broader health care system.
“Having these bills,” Pegues-Rios said, “is really all about holding people accountable for how they’re taking care of their communities and how they’re doing the work to make a better healthcare system for Black women in return, helping everyone.”
