Black Mamas Matter

In 1850, 340 out of every 1,000 black babies and 217 out of every 1,000 white babies died before their first birthday. Today, 11.3 out of 1,000 black babies and 4.9 out of 1,000 white babies die. That means that black babies today are 1.5 times more likely to die than white babies than they were in 1850 (Villarosa, NY Times). Black mothers are nearly 2.5 times more likely to die from childbirth or pregnancy related issues than white mothers, and shockingly, are 2-3 times more likely to die from the same maternal issue than white women with the same exact condition (Montagne, NPR).

Many communities are picking up on the racial disparities in the healthcare system, but there haven't been enough forward-moving actions to try to eliminate the gap. The extent of movement that I have seen in my own Northern Colorado community include workshops on racial inclusion in the healthcare field and the introduction of sliding scales for midwifery services to better serve the lower income community, much of which is made up of minorities.

The Community Roots Midwife Collective is located in Longmont, Colorado. This collective offers sliding scale low cost births to the community. Their website reads "[a]s you can imagine, poor, immigrant, and communities of color are those who have the least access to our care. And those are likely the communities which could greatly benefit from the comprehensive care of a midwife." This is a huge step in the right direction, and it paves the way for other midwifery services to follow suit in serving the communities who are in most need of quality prenatal and postpartum care.

I recently spoke with a maternal and child health federal employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, about this issue. She wanted to emphasize that “public health is very much political. You would think or hope that policy decisions will be made based on need, funds would go to those communities who need it most, et cetera. I[n] many cases funds DO support those most in need, and there are efforts made to try to ensure that, but what it really comes down to is Congress and our other elected officials.” In other words, our current politics support institutional racism in healthcare, education, and the justice system, to name a few, because of funding going toward areas that will benefit people who are not part of the minority.

The Netflix documentary, “13th,” about the 13th amendment, goes into grave detail about how minorities are stuck in the prison pipeline as a low profile means of enslaving individuals after slavery was supposedly eradicated. By keeping minorities in a system of never-ending hurdles that are blamed on socioeconomic status, criminal records, and geographic location, those who are in power are able to remain in power. The people in power also profit off of the free, or nearly free, labor of the individuals who are stuck in the prison system, most of which are serving unusually long sentences for comparatively insignificant crimes.

Unfortunately, the racial gap extends to people of color who have climbed out of economic crisis. Shalon Irving, a 36 year old African American woman, was an epidemiologist for the CDC who collapsed and died from blood pressure complications 3 weeks after giving birth to her baby girl (Montagne, NPR). This is one of many examples that highlight the crisis of lack of quality healthcare in the US, specifically for people of color.

Ina May Gaskin, a well-known midwife, was asked about the effect of racism on black mothers and infants in healthcare at a Texas meeting for birth workers. Her answer shocked the world of birth workers and proved that we have a lot of work to do in educating our healthcare officials on race and equality. Gaskin discussed the importance of work ethic, the risk of drug use, the use of prayer as stress reduction, and the importance of informed risk during pregnancy as the prime effects on black mothers and infants. Suffice to say that 70 year old Ina May Gaskin holds traditional (and false) beliefs about black families. She didn't even touch on the actual question: racism.