What Is the Black Maternal Health Crisis and What Is It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education?

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Attention to the Black maternal health crisis (BMHC) has contributed to increased efforts, resources and research focused on improving outcomes. Research has yet to examine its relevance to education. This symposium makes connections between the BMHC, reproductive justice and higher education. We do this by engaging in vulnerability, sharing personal testimonies of our o preterm births as Black mother scholars and in our research of Black parents and support needed for the BMHC. Each paper contributes valuable interdisciplinary context to move us closer to answering the question, “What is the Black maternal health crisis and what is it doing in a nice field like education?,” and how we can utilize our work as Black mothers and academics, to address this crisis.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 4: Policies, Mattering, and Praxis

Chair

• Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University

Papers

• Black Women Will Save Us: Developing and Cultivating a Healing-Centered Community in a Preterm Birth Crisis - Kisha M Porcher, University of Delaware

• Birthing Herstory: Reproductive Labor and Slavery Re-Productions on the Antebellum and Academic Plantations - Amber Neal-Stanley, Purdue University

• Navigating the Academic Job Market at the Expense of Processing Birth Trauma: Reclamation for Healing - Qiana Lachaud, Georgia State University

• Heal the Mom, Help the Child: Infant Health, Development, and Earlier Education - Mary Muse, Rush University

• Fathers as Allies in Optimizing Postpartum Mental Health in Neonatal Intensive Care Settings - Tyriesa Howard, Washington University in St. Louis