from The Lily that examines how the role of doulas intersects with private and public insurance, race, socioeconomic status, policy and the medical community.
After protests spawned a national conversation about racism last summer, CVS Health began to take a hard look at what the company was doing to address disparities.
In July, CVS Health announced that it would invest about $600 million to “advance employee, community and public policy initiatives that address inequality faced by Black people and other disenfranchised communities.”
The company decided to focus on several areas with major disparities, including maternal and child health, said Joanne Armstrong, the chief medical officer for women’s health and genomics at CVS Health. Throughout the fall and winter, Armstrong met with employees to learn more about their birth experiences. Armstrong and her team also reviewed research about doulas, who support people during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. Numerous studies connect the presence of a doula to positive maternal health outcomes. Although the number of states that cover doulas under Medicaid is slowly growing, coverage through private insurance is still relatively rare. People usually pay for a doula using their own money, limiting who has access to birth support.