The University of New Haven today announced that Richard Wormser, adjunct professor of forensic science, has received $50,000 in grants from investors to develop a documentary whose working title is “Saving Babies and Mothers.”
Wormser, who has made 51 documentaries, including many for the Public Broadcasting Service, will focus this time on infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world. The documentary is expected to air on PBS next year.
“The story will examine why the United States has one of the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the developed world,” he said. “While there is a racial difference in the outcomes, the major problem is the lack of prenatal care for low-income women in urban and rural areas.”
He said birth centers run by midwives have far better outcomes than hospitals, but many communities are unwilling to underwrite them for political and economic reasons.
Wormser was the series producer/writer and co-director of the four-part Peabody Award-winning series, “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow,” that received three national Emmy award nominations. The series explored the African American struggle for freedom during the Jim Crow era, a period that many historians consider worse than slavery.
Wormser also wrote, produced, and directed the PBS documentary American Reds that was a finalist for the best documentary.