Today, our Founder, CEO & President Lisa M. Peyton shared the podium with Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers and advocates at Children’s Wisconsin Hospital in Milwaukee for the signing of Wisconsin Act 102 - extending postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months!
This legislation ensures that thousands of mothers will have access to care during the full first year after birth—a critical window when many of the most serious complications occur, including heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and postpartum depression.
For four years, the Foundation and partners have led deep advocacy across the aisle to move this measure forward, resulting in a major policy win benefiting mothers and families across the state.
This legislative milestone builds upon the Foundation’s broader work in maternal and child health, which includes community-based maternal health services, local and statewide doula services, collaborative clinical-community care models, and advocacy efforts designed to support Black women and all women across the reproductive health continuum.
As Wisconsin moves forward with implementation, the Foundation remains committed to ensuring our communities are informed, connected to resources and empowered to access the care they deserve.
Watch Our CEO’s Press Comments
Read the Full Transcript of our CEO’s Comments
Good morning and thank you Governor Evers for the opportunity to stand here today with you and colleagues in this historic moment for families across Wisconsin.
My name is Lisa Peyton, Founder, CEO & President of the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness, a Madison-based non-profit organization that has spent more than 15 years advancing health equity in Wisconsin, and reshaping the future of Black women’s health and wellbeing.
I bring greetings on behalf of the Foundation and the Black Maternal & Child Health Alliance as we witness the signing of legislation to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a full 12 months after childbirth.
This may sound like a simple change—but it is nothing short of a life-saving policy.
For four years, the Foundation and the Alliance have worked alongside partners across Wisconsin to advance this policy—through testimony, advocacy, community engagement, and persistent conversations with leaders on both sides of the aisle.
And today, we celebrate the power of that collective effort.
This legislation ensures that thousands of mothers will have access to care during the full first year after birth—a critical window when many of the most serious complications occur, including heart disease, stroke, hypertension, and postpartum depression.
This victory is especially meaningful for Black women, who in Wisconsin, are still 3 to 5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than the majority of our peers.
While this policy alone will not eliminate those disparities, it is a critical step toward ensuring that all mothers have access to the care, support, and follow-up they need to stay healthy and alive.
As we worked to support the passage of this bill, It has been our honor to stand alongside extraordinary women and birth workers like Tamara Thompson, a member of the Alliance, a doula, and a soon-to-be midwife.
Tamara has cared for mothers through pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum—once even bringing her one-month-old daughter, Demara Dunia Mpatapo Howard, the youngest advocate among us, to the Capitol to join this fight for reproductive justice.
We would lose Demara just two months later. But her life—and the love and hope she represented—reminds us why this work matters.
Postpartum coverage is not simply a policy change. It is a recognition that mothers and families deserve care, support, and dignity not just at birth—but in the critical months that follow.
Today, we celebrate progress. And tomorrow, we continue the work—until every woman in Wisconsin has the opportunity not only to survive pregnancy, but to heal, to recover, and to thrive.
Governor Evers, thank you for your leadership.
And to every mother, advocate, and community member who helped move this forward—this moment belongs to us all.
Thank you! On Wisconsin…
And now back to you, Governor Evers. –
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