Elizabeth Warren has detailed a plan to incentivise hospitals to make childbirth safer for African American women. The candidate, who has unveiled a number of comprehensive platforms for her possible presidency, is being met with praise for the proposed policy, which she revealed at the She the People conference in Texas.

“Black moms in our country are dying from childbirth-related causes 3-4 times more often than white moms,” Warren said in a tweet accompanying video of her talk on the policy. “Any meaningful solution to our maternal mortality crisis must address structural racism as a root cause of this problem.

The US is one of only two developed nations whose maternal mortality rate has worsened in the last two decades (the other is Serbia), and in fact has the highest maternal mortality rate in that metric. For African American women, the risk of death from complications in childbirth is particularly high, with an average of 40 per 10,000 women dying.

MS Warren’s plan addresses the problem with what she refers to as the language hospitals speak in America: money.

“I want to see the hospitals see it as their responsibility to address this problem head-on and make it a first priority,” Warren said at the event on Wednesday evening. “The best way to do that is to use money to make it happen, because we gotta have change and we gotta have change now."

Warren’s plan would essentially follow practices already in place, she explained, citing hospitals’ common approach to knee surgery as an example. Essentially, hospitals would be paid for successful child births - and fined for failures resulting in deaths.

Online, African American women in particular expressed their approval of the policy.

“Elizabeth Warren rolls out plan to reward hospitals that make childbirth safer for Black Women,” wrote activist April Reign in a tweet sharing the video of Warren describing the plan. “Literally financial incentives for them to do right and penalties if they do wrong. I’ll be damned.”

Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Show all 11 1 /11 Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Pregnant women in isolated rural communities are particularly vulnerable. Often their husbands are away trying to find work leaving them with little support. Many have to give birth at home without medical assistance. Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story The programme helps Binta teach ˜mothers helpers' who live in the rural communities, eight key signs of a difficult pregnancy and childbirth and actions to remember them. Fatsuma, 40, crosses her arms - the action for fever. Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Fatsuma, who is a ‘mothers helper' counts either side of each knuckle to help women remember the number of symptoms, as well as learn different actions to match. Over 80% of women in Northern Nigeria are illiterate and this helps them remember the information without the use of leaflets. Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story After suffering two stillbirths while giving birth at home, Hauwau, 25, gave birth safely to a baby boy, Muktar, 5 months. Fatsuma had recognised a fever - one of the key danger signs - and got Hauwau to a hospital where she gave birth with the help of a midwife. DFID/Lindsay Mgbor Making childbirth safer for women - picture story But challenges remain. Hadiza, 15, lost her baby and nearly lost her life when after displaying clear signs of danger she was not taken to a hospital and instead gave birth at her parents' home. Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Hadiza continued to bleed and her family gave her a traditional remedy. They prayed for her, writing inscriptions on tablets, washing them clean and giving her the water to drink. Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story It was only when Binta persuaded Hadiza's father to take her to hospital that she received the emergency medical care she needed to save her life. Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Hadiza's whole community is now involved with the programme through volunteer groups. Musabhu Yusif, the lead male volunteer says, "Now for us in the community, going to hospital is a pride. The moment we know a woman is in labour we will quickly go, get transport and rush her to hospital" Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story Supporting midwives like Binta reach rural communities is helping British aid benefit more people. Binta says, "It's not only the volunteers who are transmitting this information, it's the whole community. One person will learn and then ten or twenty people will learn from them." Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID Making childbirth safer for women - picture story British aid to Nigeria will reduce maternal deaths by one third by increasing the number of health workers in Nigeria, providing contraceptives and improving maternal care for millions of mothers, like Hauwa and Hadiza. Hauwa's, dream now is that one day her daughter will become a health worker, "I want her to become a nurse. I pray she will help others in the same way I have been helped". Image credit: Lindsay Mgbor/DFID

“This is major,” Bitch Media Editor-in-Chief Evette Dionne tweeted. “Elizabeth Warren is doing something that few candidates seemingly do: listen to scholars and read their scholarship. I think her willingness to rely on experts to guide policy positions has a whole lot to do with her background in academia.”

The issue of African American women’s risk in live births has been addressed by a number of prominent African American women lately, including Serena Williams and Beyoncé, who shared in her newly-released Homecoming documentary that she suffered from high blood pressure and preeclampsia during her last pregnancy.