Giving Birth in South Florida: A Phenomenological Study of Pregnancy and Birth among Black Women

• In Event: 3520 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 7. Health and Mental Health

Abstract

Black women are four times more likely to die from complications during pregnancy and birth compared to White women (Center for Disease Control, 2016). Maternal mortality, neonatal mortality, low birthweight, gestational diabetes, cervical cancer, and postpartum depression are just a few reproductive health disparities that severely influence the lives of Black women, and these disparities are increasingly getting worse across the nation. Although empirical data reveal stark disproportions, the question remains as to why these statistical disparities are persistent. This study uses a phenomenological approach to conduct approximately (N=40) in-depth interviews on the lived-experiences of African American and Afro-Latina women who have had at least one pregnancy or birth (<24months) of a living child in the in the South Florida context. The argument presented in this research focuses on the narrative missing behind the numbers, as told by Black women themselves. Critical Race Theory (CRT) also operates as the theoretical framework of this study, which shows how racial stratification operates at every level of the society, including social institutions serving pregnant women. Therefore, maternal health policies are influenced implicitly, explicitly, and structurally which impact individual experiences. In order to discover pathways in reproductive health disparities, telling stories, in whatever form a story is manifested, not only helps Black women make sense of the racial matters in their own healthcare, but also helps researchers decentralize White women’s narratives from maternal health’s status quo. Racial storytelling in medicine, as told by groups experiencing disparities, will provide important insights across four domains: 1) how racial minority groups gain access to reproductive health information; 2) why racial minority groups resist certain forms of information; 3) how racial minority groups perceive their bodies, their providers, and their support; and 4) and what racial minorities think is best for their own healthcare.

Author

• Shameka Poetry Thomas, University of Miami