Keep Us From Dying: Black Maternal Health Awareness

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Mother holding toddler daughter Providence Moms BlogBlack maternal health week. BLACK maternal health week. Black MATERNAL health week…

I will NOT capitalize the word health because we BLACK MATRONS don’t have any health to spare for that. The experts have weighed in and the studies have been conducted to make what WE have known for eons an “evidenced-based public health fact.”

A concern, a movement, an initiative, turned an awareness week, and I am here. I am here to help plan and coordinate an event hosted to promote the viewing of an informative documentary The Naked Truth: Death By Delivery that included the statistic proven within one of the aforementioned studies in the New York Times that “Black women in New York are 12 times more likely to die due to childbirth complications than their white counterparts.”

Colonizers have been killing us for generations.

So, of course, it’s the black mothers who die.

But there is strength in numbers and empowerment in having positive birth outcomes. Having positive birth empowers women by proving they have the strength and they don’t need a man doctor institution to “save” them. 

I am here to discuss that the documentary that was filmed in other states, the studies that were completed in other states, the statistics that were computed in other states, yet all transfer in their entireties to YES Rhode Island, YES the woman living beside you, YES, even your best friend.

I am here to tell you that you are the problem.

Whenever you sit in a doctor’s office and you hear me struggle to schedule my appointments because I am the primary breadwinner for my family and you do not request for evening office hours, you are making it harder for me to be a healthy mother. Whenever you take a stand to not see me for the color that I am and refuse to acknowledge that walking in America while being black puts my body into a constant Fight-or-Flight reaction, you are not addressing the chronic stress I am experiencing, therefore missing the heightened cortisol levels in my bloodstream and misdiagnosing me with “minor fatigue.”

Whenever I am the problem, I work to also be the solution and so I leave you with 3 challenges for Black Maternal Health Week 2018:

FIND: Find local resources that will help facilitate stress reduction for a black mother.

BUILD: Network with your community so when a mother, any mother, is in need everyone will know you are a great resource connection. 

CREATE: If you cannot FIND the right resources and you cannot BUILD the right connections, BE a resource yourself. You have been called to action. I am here. I want all of my sisters here with me. Let us keep them.

woman with toddler daughter Providence Moms Blog

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Shay
Shaylene was born and raised in Providence RI (although her family moved around a bit) and usually just shouting out "Shay!" will get you what you need. She loves to serve her community one caregiver at a time, whether it be through breastfeeding support, babywearing education, play dates, online chats, or just a coffee run! Shay has what she needs to fill her cup and LOVES to serve from her abundance! Volunteering is her personal passion, and her job as a medical professional means that her worlds often collide in a glorious fashion; no matter where she goes there are happy people all around her. An independent mother of 2, you can usually find Shay with her two (royal) daughters she has affectionately dubbed the Duchess and Lady of her home. Together, they work hard so they can play harder on the weekends! Welcome to her world... she hopes Providence Mom readers are ready to enjoy the ride!