The RCN Foundation has identified maternal and neonatal race inequality as a priority area for its work over the coming years. The evidence shows that personalised care is essential for good and safe midwifery practice, but such care can fail to reach Black and Asian mothers and their babies, often due to racial inequality.
Personalised care underpins good quality and safe midwifery practice (National Maternity Review, 2016; Wagstaff et al, 2024) and improves the experiences of, and ensures safer care for Black and Asian women, who often live in areas of high deprivation (National Maternity Review, 2016; Birthrights, 2022; Felker and Knight, 2024).
The FiveXMore Black Maternity Experiences Report (Peter and Wheeler, 2025) found Black women continue to experience poor communication; micro-aggression and lack of empathy from healthcare professionals. This is contributing to pregnant Black and Asian women having a mortality rate 3% higher compared with White women (MBRACE-UK, 2024).
More needs to be understood about the barriers Black and Asian women face which are blocking their voice from being heard and understood, as they navigate maternal and neonatal services. Until these barriers are understood, fundamental and impactful interventions supporting healthcare professionals to listen to Black and Asian women will be difficult to develop and implement across current health and education systems.
Listen, understand, act
We've developed a programme of research and education which aims to contribute to the evidence-base to address race inequalities in the UK, across maternal and neonatal health and wellbeing.
The programme seeks to to give a voice to Black and Asian mothers about their experiences, and to support midwives to learn and better understand these experiences, supporting them to provide personalised, safer care for Black and Asian mothers and their babies.