On a bright spring morning in Merrillville, Ind., nearly 400 women and their families form a line outside the Dean and Barbara White Center, waiting for the doors to open. They’ve come for what was advertised as a health fair, but what they’ll experience is more akin to a community revival, one centered on transforming maternal health outcomes in one of America’s most challenging regions for Black mothers and infants.
Inside, Dr. Maya Dominique moves between stations with practiced efficiency, checking in with the 88 vendors who represent not just health care services but a comprehensive ecosystem of support: housing resources, job opportunities, educational pathways, and practical services like free haircuts and hair braiding for mothers who rarely have time for self-care. For Dr. Dominique, this evolution from traditional health fair to holistic wellness event represents the culmination of years spent recognizing that medical care alone cannot solve America’s maternal health crisis.
“I changed it from a health fair to a wellness fair,” Dr. Dominique explains, “because what I understood was that health and wellness was not just about whether they came to the physician, but did these women have a safe place to stay? Were these women in abusive relationships? Did they know where to go if they didn’t have formula or diapers for their baby?”
The crisis beyond clinical walls
The statistics that drive Dr. Dominique’s work are stark. In Lake County, Ind., where she practices, infant mortality rates reach 14 per 1,000, nearly three times the national average of 5.6 per 1,000 live births. These disparities reflect not just medical challenges but systemic inequities that conventional healthcare struggles to address.
“My patients do not have the ability to go to grocery stores with lots of fruits and vegetables,” she notes of Gary, Ind., a documented food desert. “Some of these things are actually systematically set up, which then put women in these terrible positions.”
Dr. Dominique’s journey to addressing these challenges began with a childhood calling. “As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to deliver babies,” she says. “As a 5-year-old, I did not have a physician in my family that I was looking up to, so I just know that it was a calling from God.”
That calling led her through deliberate educational choices: becoming a certified nursing assistant to understand bedside care, studying abroad to learn different cultural approaches to health, attending medical school at Rosalind Franklin University in Chicago, and completing her residency at Mercy Hospital on the city’s South Side, where her patients were predominantly women of color.
“I can count on one hand, out of all of the hundreds of deliveries that I did at that hospital, I probably only interacted with less than 10 Caucasian white women,” she recalls. It was during this residency that national attention began focusing on Black maternal mortality rates. “That’s when it was like, ‘Whoa! I am in the right place at the right time to take action.'”
From physician to movement builder
The traditional career path for a successful obstetrician-gynecologist often leads deeper into hospital systems or private practice. Dr. Dominique chose a different route. In 2023, she stepped away from full-time hospital employment to become an independent contractor, creating space to pursue her vision through Prenatal Well, her nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing maternal and infant mortality.
“I’m now an independent physician, I can create my schedule how I want to, and I can still go after my passion,” she explains, acknowledging common concerns about work-life balance in medical careers. “Sometimes we think like, ‘Oh, well, I want to do something that’s quick and fast,’ but if you’re really following your passion, if you’re really doing what you really want to do, that time will go so fast.”
This transition allowed her to expand her approach beyond traditional medical interventions to address what healthcare researchers increasingly recognize as “social determinants of health”, the conditions in which people live, work, and age that significantly impact health outcomes.
The 4 foundations of community wellness
Dr. Dominique’s model builds on four interconnected pillars that together create a foundation for improved maternal health:
Recognizing that food deserts represent a fundamental barrier to maternal health, Dr. Dominique has established partnerships with local Black farmers to bring fresh produce directly to the community. She also provides cooking demonstrations that transform familiar cultural staples into healthier versions.
“We did a full culturally sensitive menu,” she explains of a recent health fair. “We had baked chicken, we had collard greens, sweet potato, we did a vegetarian chili. We showed them how to do a smoothie, and none of this was made with any sugar and salt.”
The impact was immediate: “The kids were coming up, everybody was coming up for seconds and thirds, and then we told them it was no salt, and no one could believe it.” Attendees left with recipes and a new understanding that healthy eating could align with cultural food traditions.
Dr. Dominique has developed educational resources including a guide featuring the “top 10 questions” women should ask their physicians during pregnancy. These questions include seemingly simple but potentially life-saving inquiries such as, “Do you know the hospital where you’re delivering at?”
“Sometimes we don’t realize that our hospitals are tiered in regards to the resources that they have, and it goes from level one to level four,” she explains. “If you go to a level one hospital and you’re having a placental abruption, there’s no physician that’s at the hospital. There’s no anesthesiologist at the hospital, that could be life or death between you and your baby.”
The expansion of Dr. Dominique’s annual wellness fair reflects her understanding that maternal health depends on stability across multiple domains. The event now includes resources for safe housing, domestic violence intervention, baby supplies, education, and employment opportunities.
This year’s fair even includes military recruiters, an acknowledgment that sustainable economic pathways represent a key component of family health. “You never know who might want to go into the services because we also need workers in the services,” she notes.
Perhaps most innovatively, Dr. Dominique has incorporated men into her maternal health strategy. “We have a men’s survey that we’re doing to make sure that we know how they feel when their partners are pregnant, when they’re becoming fathers, what they need to make sure that they are equipped with the knowledge to take care of their families.”
This approach recognizes that supportive partners can significantly improve pregnancy outcomes, yet men are often excluded from maternal health initiatives.
A model for national replication
While Dr. Dominique’s work is centered in Lake County, Indiana, her approach offers a potential template for addressing maternal health disparities nationwide. By recognizing that healthcare happens primarily outside clinical settings and building infrastructure that addresses the full spectrum of wellness needs, she has created a community-based model that could be adapted to other regions facing similar challenges.
As Black Maternal Health Week brings national attention to these disparities, Dr. Dominique finds solidarity in a growing movement. “I am not alone in this fight. There are women all across the country this week that are making a huge difference in regards to Black Maternal Health Week,” she says.
For the women of Lake County, Dr. Dominique’s efforts represent more than healthcare, they offer hope. In a region where statistics paint a grim picture, her work demonstrates that community-driven interventions can create pathways to better outcomes. Through Prenatal Well, accessible via Instagram and Facebook, she continues to expand her reach, offering resources, guidance, and a vision for maternal healthcare that centers Black women’s needs and experiences.
In Dr. Dominique’s approach, we glimpse a future where maternal health disparities are addressed not just through medical interventions but through comprehensive community transformation, a vision that extends well beyond hospital walls.
