Ten maternal health clinicians, advocates and founders earn a brand partnership through checkable credentials, not audience size. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics reported 44.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women in 2024, against 14.2 for white women, so partner choice is a safety decision. This list names ten voices with documented roles, then shows how to vet any partner before you sign.
Originally published September 2024. Updated October 20, 2026. Roles and rates last checked October 8, 2026.
What are the key points?
- The list covers four physicians, one psychiatrist, two founders and three advocacy voices, each with a role that a publisher, institution or news outlet documents.
- The CDC's 2024 rate for Black women was 44.8 per 100,000 live births, about three times the 14.2 rate for white women.
- Confirm every license or certification with the body that issues it, not with the creator's bio.
- Add at least one Black maternal health clinician or advocate to every program.
What is on this page?
Who are the 10 credentialed maternal health voices in 2026?
The ten voices below are four physicians, one psychiatrist, two founders and three advocacy voices. Each entry gives the documented role and the best brand fit, which is an EPR editorial suggestion.
1. Dr. Jennifer Gunter
Role: OB-GYN and pain medicine physician, and women's health columnist at The New York Times. Documented basis: board certified in OB-GYN in Canada and the United States, and author of The Vagina Bible (2019) and The Menopause Manifesto (2021). Best fit: clinical review of pregnancy and recovery claims.
2. Dr. Diana Ramos
Role: OB-GYN and California Surgeon General. Documented basis: Governor Gavin Newsom appointed her in 2022, and she completed her OB-GYN residency at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. Best fit: public health and policy-facing maternal programs.
3. Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell
Role: OB-GYN at Ochsner Health. Documented basis: medical director of the Louisiana Perinatal Quality Collaborative and of Louisiana's Pregnancy Associated Mortality Review, per the AAMC Center for Health Justice. Best fit: programs on maternal safety and quality of care.
4. Dr. Joia Crear-Perry
Role: OB-GYN, and founder and president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative. Documented basis: she completed her OB-GYN residency at Tulane University School of Medicine and has addressed the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights twice. Best fit: birth equity programs and Black maternal health panels.
5. Dr. Pooja Lakshmin
Role: psychiatrist focused on women's mental health, and New York Times contributor. Documented basis: board-certified psychiatrist who founded the Gemma education platform in 2020 and wrote Real Self-Care, per her publisher. Best fit: maternal mental health products and content.
6. Erica Chidi
Role: doula and health educator, and co-founder of Loom. Documented basis: the women's health company Perelel acquired Loom in October 2024, and Chidi joined Perelel as a strategic advisor. Best fit: birth and postpartum education programs.
7. Laura Modi
Role: co-founder and CEO of Bobbie, an infant formula company. Documented basis: TIME named her a Woman of the Year in 2025, and she joined the inaugural CNBC Changemakers list in 2024. Best fit: founder perspective on infant feeding.
8. Tonya Lewis Lee
Role: filmmaker, and women's and infant health advocate. Documented basis: she co-directed Aftershock, a documentary on Black maternal mortality that premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Best fit: storytelling and awareness campaigns.
9. Charles Johnson
Role: Black maternal health advocate. Documented basis: he appears in Aftershock as a father who lost his partner after childbirth and became an advocate. Best fit: awareness work that centers fathers and families.
10. Black Mamas Matter Alliance
Role: Black maternal health advocacy alliance. Documented basis: Dr. Crear-Perry serves on its board of trustees. Best fit: advocacy collaborations and community programs.
Roles come from publisher author pages, the Office of the California Surgeon General, the AAMC Center for Health Justice, Sundance Institute coverage, and press reports on the Loom sale, all checked on October 8, 2026. Confirm each role again before you sign a contract, because titles change.
How large is the Black maternal health gap in CDC data?
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) measured 44.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births for Black women in 2024, about three times the 14.2 rate for white women.
| Group | 2023 rate | 2024 rate |
|---|
| All women | 18.6 | 17.9 |
| Black, non-Hispanic | 50.3 | 44.8 |
| White, non-Hispanic | 14.5 | 14.2 |
| Hispanic | 12.4 | 12.1 |
| Asian, non-Hispanic | 10.7 | 18.1 |
Rates are maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Source: NCHS Health E-Stat 113, published March 2026.
NCHS counted 649 maternal deaths in 2024, down from 669 in 2023, and reported that the year-over-year changes for every racial group were not statistically significant. The 2024 Black rate remains statistically higher than the rate for every other group NCHS reports.
The NCHS definition covers a woman's death while pregnant or within 42 days after the pregnancy ends, from causes related to or aggravated by the pregnancy, and it excludes accidental or incidental causes. A brand program that serves mothers months after birth reaches beyond that window, so state the 42-day definition whenever you quote the rate.
How was this list built?
EPR editors built this list from documented clinical or advocacy roles, public work on maternal or reproductive health, and credentials that an issuing body, publisher or news outlet confirms.
The list is an editorial selection, not a measured ranking of AI citations. EPR has not run a prompt-level citation test on maternal health queries, so no name here is claimed as the most cited by any AI engine.
How do you check a maternal health creator's credentials?
Check a maternal health creator's credentials by confirming each license or certification with the organization that issues it, not by reading the creator's bio.
- Ask the creator for the credential and the name of the issuing body in writing.
- Confirm physicians through the state medical board's license lookup and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology certification search.
- Confirm certified nurse-midwives with the American Midwifery Certification Board and lactation consultants with the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners.
- Ask doulas which training organization certified them and confirm with that organization, because doula credentials come from individual training bodies.
- Read the creator's paid-partnership disclosures. The FTC Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR Part 255, require clear disclosure of material connections between an endorser and a brand.
Why it works. A license or board certification is a record held by an issuing body that anyone can check, while a bio is a statement the creator wrote. A verified record gives a brand evidence of expertise if a claim is later challenged.
What mistakes do brands make in maternal health marketing?
Brands make three repeat mistakes in maternal health marketing: they hand clinical claims to non-clinicians, they publish health claims without evidence, and they leave Black maternal health voices out of programs.
- Clinical claims from non-clinicians. A creator without clinical training who explains a symptom or treatment gives the audience medical advice with no accountable license behind it. Under the FTC Endorsement Guides, the advertiser that sponsors the post shares responsibility for what the creator claims. Route every clinical statement to a named clinician and keep the creator to personal experience.
- Claims without evidence. A claim that a product prevents, treats or improves a health outcome needs scientific support. The FTC expects advertisers to hold competent and reliable scientific evidence for health claims before they publish them. Collect the study before the post goes live and file it with the creative brief.
- Missing Black voices. A maternal health program with no Black clinicians or advocates skips the group with the highest rate in the CDC data above. Add at least one Black physician or advocate to every program, and pay that partner for clinical review, not only for posting.
How should a brand choose maternal health partners?
A brand should choose maternal health partners by matching each discipline to the product claim, verifying every credential, and testing the final list in AI search.
EPR editors recommend anchoring a program with three to five partners across obstetrics, midwifery or doula care, and mental health.
- Match the discipline to the claim: an OB-GYN for pregnancy and recovery products, a lactation consultant for feeding products, a psychiatrist for maternal mental health products.
- Run the five credential checks above on every candidate before outreach.
- Add a Black maternal health clinician or advocate to the panel.
- Ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews a category question every month, such as which doctors to trust on postpartum recovery, and log which partners and sources each engine names.
EPR has not measured which maternal health partners the engines repeat, so the monthly log is the measurement. Read the generative engine optimization guide for the method, then study the maternal health marketing playbook and the 25 maternal health PR campaigns for brand examples.
Related: creators AI engines cite
