Toronto’s CN Tower lit up in purple, gold and green on April 13—a glowing beacon of remembrance and hope marking the inaugural Toronto Black Maternal Health Week. For Jenelle Ambrose Dash, watching the landmark shine in those colors represented something deeply personal: a tribute to the daughter she lost when she was seven months pregnant, and a symbol of hope that other Black women might be spared similar heartbreak.
“This week is really born out of trauma—my own trauma,” says Dash, a lawyer by training who notes that even her professional credentials and advocacy skills weren’t enough to prevent tragedy.
Two years ago, Dash experienced what should have been a routine pregnancy, but it ended in tragedy when she developed pre-eclampsia – a potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure and signs of damage to organs, most often the liver and kidneys.
Dash tells ESSENCE that despite repeated attempts to get medical help when she felt something was wrong, the standardized protocols didn’t flag her concerns as urgent enough for hospital admission. “I did not show your classic signs of pre-eclampsia until the very end,” she recalls. “I presented as healthy. I had maybe minor swelling, but not to the point that they thought would be necessary for hospitalization.”
Dash suffered the late-term loss of her daughter – a loss she now believes might have been preventable with more culturally competent care. It’s what compelled her to start Black Maternal Health Collective Canada(BMHCC) in 2024 to support the development of the first Toronto Black Maternal Health Week.
This groundbreaking initiative, which runs from April 11 to 17th under the theme “Amplifying Our Voices,” brings together healthcare providers, community organizations and advocates to address a crisis that has remained largely invisible in Canadian healthcare. Key partners include North York General Hospital, Black Physicians of Canada and Mino Care. “I want to ensure that my daughter Maya Bailey Dash has a legacy that goes beyond her loss, that people recognize that her life had meaning,” Dash says, emotion evident in her voice.
She drew inspiration and healing from several sources—the Georgia-based Black Mamas Matter Alliance, which founded Black Maternal Health Week in the US, Bozoma Saint John’s memoir The Urgent Life and Toronto’s Pregnancy and Infant Loss Network. But she also felt a deep need to create something more: a support system for Black Canadian women.
While the United States has seen growing attention on Black maternal health disparities—especially as it marks eight years of Black Maternal Health Week—Canadian challenges have remained largely under the radar. According to Dash and her twin sister, Adele Ambrose, a fellow lawyer and advisory committee member for BMHCC, Canada’s reputation for universal healthcare excellence has inadvertently masked serious inequities affecting Black mothers.
A McGill University study revealed that Black women in Canada experience preterm births at a rate of 8.9% compared to 5.9% among white women. This racial disparity is of great concern because preterm births are the leading cause of deathin children under the age of 5 years globally, and those who survive often face developmental disabilities.
“For us to have that particular type of outcome means that something’s going on,” Dash notes. Unlike the U.S., Canada faces a unique challenge in measuring the full extent of racial disparities in its healthcare system: a lack of lack of comprehensive race-based health data. “The issue for us is that even when we say the system isn’t built for us, we’re met with the challenge of not being able to support it with data,” she explains.
Beyond “Colorblind” Healthcare
The fundamental problem Dash identifies is the “colorblind” approach to Canadian healthcare. “The institutional structures are color blind,” she says, “and that colorblind approach is leading to outcomes that are damaging to families.”
The maternal health advocate is careful to emphasize that she doesn’t want Blackness itself to be considered a risk factor. Instead, Dash champions a healthcare system that acknowledges and responds to diversity, rather than ignoring it. “What I’m hoping,” she says, “is that people say, ‘Let’s take off the colorblind approach,’ at least within the Canadian context.”
While her personal story catalyzed the week, Dash is adamant that the initiative represents collective power, not individual trauma. “The way that this week was constructed was a collective effort of Black-led organizations, Black women in particular, coming together,” she explains.
“I don’t want it to be like, ‘Jenelle went through pre-eclampsia and lost her child.’ That’s not what I’m looking for. What I’m looking for is an acknowledgement that Black women coming together, working together, can actually achieve greatness,” she notes.
The launch of the inaugural Toronto Black Maternal Health Week at North York General Hospital featured an exhibition of healthcare providers. Other days throughout the week will focus on practitioners sharing research, midwifery with a community baby shower, research and policy development and birth justice workshops.
“It is a reflection of the fact that when we come together when Black women get together and work together, great things can happen,” Dash notes.
Breaking the Silence
Ambrose emphasizes another critical aspect of the initiative: normalizing conversations about pregnancy loss. “We want to have more healthcare professionals, more families and communities breaking the stigma around speaking about loss, speaking about pre-eclampsia.”
This stigma-breaking work is particularly challenging for the sisters, who describe themselves as naturally private people. “This is probably the last thing she ever wanted to be doing with her time and her life at this point,” Ambrose says of her sister. “But it’s turning pain into purpose.”
For her, supporting her sister’s vision is deeply personal. “I almost lost my sister,” Ambrose shares. “When everything was happening, I made a promise to God and to myself that whatever she intends to do after this, I will support her. To see this come together… it’s a reminder that God answers prayers.”
Both sisters say they draw strength from their community and their Antiguan heritage as they navigate this advocacy work. “As daughters of the West Indies, I know folks don’t like the strong Black women moniker, but that’s who we are, and I’m very proud of that,” Dash says. “I think of my grandmother when I think about what we’re doing here. My grandmother also lost children and went on to have more. The strength of those women of that particular generation informs how I move through this world.”
She sees their work as honoring that legacy. “We are the evidence of wish fulfillment for that generation. Now that we have this access, how can we not push for change? It’s our duty as women of the diaspora to push forward, to show our strength, and to call things out when we see there’s some wrong being done.”
Dash adds that their background gives them perspective on the challenges immigrants face navigating the healthcare system. “I think about the person who may be going into settings where they have an accent, people don’t understand them, or suggest that they don’t understand them. People may not be as quick to question authority. I know that with the privilege that I’ve been given, I have the ability to do things that my mother’s generation didn’t have the ability to do.”
Building a Movement
With an eye toward the future, Dash envisions growing far beyond Toronto this week. “We hope that this Toronto Black Maternal Health Week will turn into a national week. We want this to exist elsewhere within Canada. This is just the beginning. I want this to be a movement.”
She also highlights the importance of international collaboration. “We’d love to work with the US on the week itself at some point. We’d like to see maybe more of our American folks come into Canada and have conversations about how they’re approaching some of the issues that we’re facing.” Dash adds, “Maybe we can take some best practices from their approach here in Canada and vice versa. The more dialog we have between all our communities, the better we all are.”
Dash and Ambrose are focused on creating lasting change beyond the awareness week. They hope to influence policy changes that would allow for more collection of race-based data, improve culturally competent care options and reduce the burden of self-advocacy that often falls so heavily on Black women during vulnerable moments.
“I hope that women who’ve experienced loss are inspired to find ways to find meaning after loss,” Dash says. “I hope that this story is inspiring to someone who’s going through a similar experience to do something with their loss. It doesn’t have to be an advocacy-based week or anything, but if they can find meaning after this.”
Ambrose adds, “I just hope this week helps to advance conversations around maternal healthcare and health outcomes for Black women in general. I hope it gives someone who’s experienced loss hope and gives their family hope as well, that there is life after loss.”
For Black expectant mothers, healthcare providers, and policymakers across Canada, the message of the inaugural Toronto Black Maternal Health Week resonates beyond its seven days: culturally competent care isn’t just about comfort – it’s about survival. And for Dash, Ambrose and the Black Maternal Health Collective Canada, it’s about holding space—for every Black mother who deserves to be heard and everyone still fighting to be.