Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Makes a Maternal and Infant Health Budget Announcement

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted New York State’s status as the first state in the nation to enact a stand-alone prenatal leave policy as part of the FY 2025 Enacted Budget. As part of her broader plan to improve maternal and infant mortality, the Governor also established statewide Medicaid coverage for doulas, created the state’s first doula directory to assist pregnant New Yorkers seeking support, and has taken steps to eliminate cost-sharing for certain pregnancy-related benefits for those enrolled in the state’s Essential Plan or Qualified Health Plans.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning. Any parents out there? Quite a few of you. Quite a few of you. Parenthood is certainly one of the most joyful, profound experiences in our lives. But it really requires a village, does it not? To support our moms and our children. And not just from family and friends, but also from health care professionals, doctors, midwives, doulas, nurses and other health care professionals who are so essential to this process. And I would add to that as well, mental health professionals.

And back in January, I said I was going to fight for changes in our laws and our policies to allow more moms and babies to – literally to stay alive and to thrive. And I'm really proud today to say we got it done. And I want to thank everyone who was involved in this process.

My partners in the State Legislature, Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Speaker Carl Heastie, our local Assemblymember here, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn. I want to thank also for her leadership there, but also for all she does here. Locally, we have our Borough President. I want to thank him as well, Antonio Reynoso. You'll be hearing from him. Helena Grant, the President of New York Midwives, you'll be hearing from him. Wendy Wilcox, the Chief Women's Health Officer of NYC Health Hospitals. Assemblymembers Bobby Carroll is here, thank you very much, Jo Anne Simon. Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse is here joining us. Thank you, Mercedes. Jennifer Gutiérrez is here, Jennifer. Also, we are blessed and fortunate to have a great friend of mine here, former Congresswoman, but now the Chair of NOW New York State, Carolyn Maloney, Carolyn. And Caroline Sanchez, thank you for hosting us here at the Dodge YMCA, so thank you.

It's important that leaders call out problems when they see them, not try to mask them and hope they'll go away just because others before have not taken them on. And the sad truth is that our country is staring down a crisis when it comes to maternal and infant health. Before, during and after childbirth, women in the United States are dying at a higher rate from these pregnancy related causes than any other wealthy, developed nation on the planet.

Process that for one minute. We pride ourselves on so many things. But for us to have a higher rate of death for women who simply want to have a child and their babies – this strikes at the core of who we are. If we can't protect society's most vulnerable, newborn babies and their moms who are in a tough situation, then what are we here for? What is our purpose?

In 2022, some of the latest numbers we have, we start to see a trend that is so disturbing. America's infant mortality rate rose for the first time in two decades. It started going up. What happened? We're getting more sophisticated, more health care available, we have health care available to more people. What is going on when that phenomenon is taking hold in our nation? We now have double the rate of our peer countries in terms of both infant and maternal mortality. And it's no secret that Black and brown families are disproportionately affected. Black babies are more than two-and-a-half times more likely to die than white babies. Black women are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.

Does anybody think that's acceptable? No. We have to stand up and fight for these people, fight for them. Stand up and use every tool at our disposal to change that outcome before it's too late, before we lose any more people.

Reversing these trends in our state is one of our top priorities, it has to be. Because if not us, then who? Since 2010, we've jumped from 46 in the nation to 15. That's better, but we're New York. We shouldn't be 15 at anything. We should be number one in protecting our moms and our babies. Should we not? We should be number one.

So that's why I came to Brooklyn back in January. We were laying out the planks of our State of the State Address. I said, “We're going to address this head on. We will not shirk away. We will not bury our heads in the sand.” And over the last few months I've implemented executive actions to make significant progress to start.

First of all, by eliminating copays and out of pocket expenses for pregnancy related care for 1.3 million New Yorkers. So, making it less expensive at a time when affordability is such a crisis as well for many of our families. We also have new oversight measures to identify physicians who are over utilizing sometimes unnecessary procedures during labor and delivery. Need I say C-sections? For many, that's just a convenience. But is it really what's best for the mom and the baby? Is that the paramount calculation here? It hasn't been, it will be now.

That's just the beginning. In our budget negotiations, I fought for a six-point plan to tackle these issues head on right here in New York. Let me just take a couple minutes to tell you about it.

Point one, and I'm really proud of this one, New York will be the first state in the nation to offer fully paid leave for prenatal care. That means – we already have the strongest paid family leave program in the country. That's great. And it's making a difference for thousands of families. But that kicks in after the baby's born. Women need help during pregnancy as well.

I was fortunate. I was an expectant mom working for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan on Capitol Hill. The hours were long and grueling. Sometimes we had to pull all-nighters during session. I remember being this big, trying to waddle to my car in the parking lot at two in the morning. Probably not the safest thing that I've ever done, but that was our job. But I never had to miss an appointment because I couldn't afford to go. I made all those appointments. I was there. Sonograms, blood tests, everything you need to make sure that you're giving your baby the best start in life. But what about the moms working minimum wage jobs hourly? They take off, that's less money for themselves or even other children at home.

Regular prenatal care improves the odds of a healthy pregnancy. It's not complicated. Women are in an impossible position sometimes, choosing between bringing home that paycheck to the size it's supposed to be and taking care of their own health and the health of their baby. I say those days are over in the State of New York. We're putting our moms first and making sure that they have these prenatal appointments without fear of losing income. We got it done here in the State of New York.

And we're raising the bar for the rest of the nation. I want every mom in this country to have the best chances of a positive, healthy outcome for themselves and their babies. I hope every other state in this nation follows our lead.

Also, moms sometimes have to choose about getting paid and taking time off to pump breast milk. This should be more normalized than it is. There should be no restriction. If you've made the decision to breastfeed your baby, there should be no obstacles. That's why part two of our plan requires employers to offer paid time – you don't deduct that time from a woman who needs to do that during work hours.

She can't plan this to happen during off working hours. It doesn't work that way. Workplaces need to support pumping so everyone can benefit. It lowers the risk of illness for babies. That's important. Reduces the stress on new moms. And also, this is one of your employees. My advice to employers is help the mom get through this time. Invest in this individual. Give her the support she needs now. That will help you keep your employees coming back, because eventually the babies get older. Things change. I'm proof of this. I have a grandbaby now. It's fun to watch them have to take care of the baby now. I'm relishing this role. But it helps everybody.

But why weren't we doing this all along? Part three of the plan focuses on doula care. I love our doulas. Any doulas in the house? Doulas are pregnancy and childbirth experts who provide physical support, information, but also emotional support. I mean, let's face it – your hormones are out of whack. You are going through such stresses, and if this is not your first child and you have another one at home – my kids are about a year and a half apart – but I was only a year younger than my brother. My mom had six kids – yeah, this is stressful on families.

Really, really stressful. And to acknowledge that there are mental health challenges to all this is something that has not been really talked about for a long time. But it's real. Studies show that doula care is correlated to positive outcomes. Reducing premature deliveries and the likelihood of postpartum depression.

We've already taken steps to make sure this vital care is available by requiring Medicaid to cover doula services and signing a law making sure there's a statewide doula directory because if someone says, “That sounds great, where are they? How do I find them?” We're going to simplify it. You have enough to worry about. And our Budget will make sure that you can have doula referrals without having to go to a doctor first. So, we can make that a lot easier. So, let's get that done.

Part four: I mentioned unnecessary C-sections. We know the risks. It's high risk sometimes. The fourth part of our plan will encourage doctors to avoid unnecessary C-sections as well. And we have a whole strategy around that. So, our Budget builds on our executive actions and provides also financial incentives for these doctors to reduce the number of unnecessary C-sections.

And the fifth part of our plan – this is so important – addressing head on maternal mental health. According to CDC data, one in five pregnancy related deaths are due to mental health conditions. Every one of these was preventable. Every one of them was preventable. If someone had given these women – sometimes going through this alone, overwhelmed with the stress, their body's just so exhausted, and there's a baby that just won't stop crying all night long. All these are preventable if we had just given people a lifeline.

That's why we're launching specialized trainings for counselors on the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline so they know what to say, so they're culturally competent, and so they understand also what's going on physically and mentally. And this will connect women in mental health distress with compassionate care and referrals to important sources.

There's a program called Project Teach, which offers training to clinicians who don't have the knowledge. They probably didn't teach this in medical school a long time ago. I guarantee they didn't. They need to now. That's my alert to medical schools. Start talking about this now. Start teaching people.

But also making sure there's supplemental training. I want to make sure that's available to everyone. And finally, we're taking action to keep our babies safe, so they have a safe place to sleep. More than 120 babies died. They die every year in New York because of their cribs.

They don't have a crib, they don't have a safe place to sleep, they're not protected. We're going to make sure that every child in the State of New York has portable cribs. We'll get them out to families in need, provide a safe environment, instructions, let people know you can't let the baby sleep in a laundry basket on the floor. You can't let them sleep in a drawer like my parents did when they lived in a trailer park with my brother. There wasn't a lot of space in this tiny trailer park. They didn't have any options.

But we're going to make it better for people. We have to. Something as simple that others would take for granted. Of course, you're going to have this. Some have these monitors. You wrap the baby in this blanket, and it monitors everything they do all night long.

That's what my grandbaby is fortunate to have. Her parents can sleep better at night. If she skips one breath, the alarms go off. That's how babies are being kept alive. But they're not inexpensive. There should not be a disparity between whether or not your baby's going to survive possible sudden infant death syndrome.

Survival or death. It comes down to how much your family has to pay for this. I want to change that as well. The technology's there. Every baby, regardless of their parent’s position in life or their economic situation, deserves to have that. We also want to make sure that it's available. You can tell this is personal to me.

I've had a couple kids, but I also have a lot of friends and people that you know they're going through a lot. Their kids, other people's kids, you see it. And if I'm not able to address this head on as the first mom to ever be elevated to the position of Governor, then who will? So, this is really important to me personally, but also, I see that we have an opportunity here to change the trajectory for millions of New Yorkers and put them on a healthy path by making decisions like we are here today.

A decision to say, “No more.” No more. I don't want to be in that category of those who are so timid, afraid, not willing to challenge the status quo and do what's right for New Yorkers. Even our newest New Yorkers, our babies. Every family, every mom deserves to feel the joy and excitement. If you're a Black woman in the State of New York, getting pregnant should not be a death sentence for you.

And that's the fear as I talk to young women. They are afraid. This should be a joyful time. Time to embrace this little person who loves you unconditionally. To not result in the most horrific outcome, the loss of the mother, loss of the baby. It's just too painful. And I want to stop that. All families need our help.

And that's what the State of New York is committed to do. Our capacity is limitless. We're only limited by our imagination, and my imagination is vast when it comes to this, because I've been there. I've been there, and I understand. So, thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining us here today. I appreciate all of you for being part of this cause.