The cover story of the New York Times Magazine on April 11 garnered more attention for a problem that is increasingly becoming news but is not new: Black women and babies die at alarmingly high rates during pregnancy and childbirth. But the article advanced the conversation in two important ways: first, by acknowledging that racism is to blame for these disparities, and second, by elevating the role of doulas as a potential intervention for Black mothers and babies.
The author, Linda Villarosa, explained: “Recently there has been growing acceptance of what has largely been, for the medical establishment, a shocking idea: For black women in America, an inescapable atmosphere of societal and systemic racism can create a kind of toxic physiological stress, resulting in conditions—including hypertension and pre-eclampsia—that lead directly to higher rates of infant and maternal death.”
But the reality is that it’s not just pregnant women who see the health impacts of racism—these types of disparities cross gender, age, ethnic and racial lines. People of color, especially African-Americans, experience the highest rates of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and much more. Therefore, to truly get at the root causes of these health problems, we’d need to eliminate racism. We’d need to dismantle or dramatically reform institutions that uphold racist paradigms.
[For more on this story by Miriam Zoila Pérez, go to https://rewire.news/article/20...ion-can-do-about-it/]
For another story on a similar topic, see Letter: The Long-Delayed Pursuit of Justice.
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