EMBRACE Black Wellness

The Challenge: Black women experience inequitable outcomes in obstetrical care in the United States stemming from systemic and interpersonal anti-Black racism.

The Intervention: Group Prenatal Care (GPC) has been shown to decrease emergency visits, promote breast feeding, and provide higher quality of care and decrease rates of preterm birth, especially among Black participants. [1, 2]. Despite widespread acknowledgement of GPC benefits, there is no racially responsive GPC curriculum expressively address the health consequences of anti-Black racism.

Since 2018, the University of California San Francisco has piloted EMBRACE, an innovative group care program that was developed specifically for Black pregnant people.

EMBRACE is a clinical program developed to give Black mothers and Black pregnant people an opportunity to receive prenatal care from an intentional angle of racial consciousness.

EMBRACE asserts a deliberate and unapologetic stance around holding Black mothers, Black pregnant people and their families with a model of care where social and economic factors that affect their health are identified and acknowledged.

EMBRACE has 8 unique qualities that set it apart from traditional GPC: