Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, will expand its health care coverage nationwide next month to employees who want to seek the services of a doula, a person trained to help women during pregnancies.
The coverage was first offered to Walmart workers in Georgia in 2021, and last year the Bentonville, Arkansas-based discounter offered the same benefit to workers in Louisiana, Indiana and Illinois. The exception is Hawaii, which has its own health benefits, Walmart said.
Walmart said the program, which launches nationwide on Nov. 1, is intended to address racial inequities in health care and improve the health of employees’ mothers and children and their infants, especially in areas where access to care is limited could be. Doulas are trained experts who must receive credentials from the National Black Doulas Association or DONA International.
“As things evolve and we emerge from the COVID-19 crisis, we continue to see gaps where maternal care is not always available or additional support is needed,” said Lisa Woods, Walmart vice president of physical and emotional well-being .
Ms. Woods declined to specify the number of Walmart employees who have participated in the program so far, noting that the biggest challenge has been educating employees about what doulas actually do. It plans to better promote the offering and include the expanded coverage in its annual health insurance enrollment materials.
The expansion of doula benefits comes as a new collection of reports from the March of Dimes, a nonprofit dedicated to ending preventable maternal health risks and deaths, shows that more than 5.6 million women live in counties with limited or no access to maternity care services, pushing families to find new ways to get the care they need. The loss of hospital obstetric units was responsible for reduced access to maternity care in nearly 1 in 10 counties in the United States, according to the report.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women, largely due to disparities in health care quality and structural racism.
According to the National Black Doulas Association, using a doula as part of a birth team reduces the rate of cesarean sections by 50%, shortens labor time by 25%, and reduces the need for other medical interventions by more than half.
Employees covered by Walmart’s medical plan can receive help from a doula with coverage of up to $1,000 per pregnancy. The company already has a “Life with Baby” program, which offers free resources such as one-on-one coaching with a nurse, tools to track daily progress, and gifts for new babies.
Other major US companies also offer full or partial doula services for employees, including CVS Health and Microsoft.
Tracy Collins, president and founder of the National Black Doulas Association, noted that Walmart’s move to expand the program nationwide could help build momentum for using doula services to address racial disparities in maternal care.
“I see major corporations interested in joining the (National Black Doulas Association) for the appearance of supporting a Black business or a Black-brown business, but they are not following suit,” Ms. Collins.
Jillian Bowman, mother of a now 17-month-old boy from Clarksville, Georgia, who works as an hourly optician at a nearby Walmart store in Clayton, Georgia, turned to a doula service after being unhappy with her care at a local hospital. ob-gyn practice. Ms Bowman was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and told she would need a caesarean section, which would require a longer recovery period. Midway through her pregnancy, Ms. Bowman turned to a doula and was able to get the service covered by Walmart’s insurance plan. The doula guided her during her pregnancy.
She credited her doula with allowing her to give birth naturally at a local hospital.
“I didn’t get that much attention from the medical team there,” she said. “But having her there and preparing her for all that made me feel so much more confident going into the whole thing.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press