Birthing Justice

Black Women, Pregnancy, and Childbirth

Julia Chinyere Oparah, Alicia D. Bonaparte, Julia Chinyere Oparah, Alicia D. Bonaparte

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781612058375
• eBook ISBN: 9781317277200
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: African American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and personal perspectives, the book shows readers how they too can change lives, one birth at a time.

Index

• abolitionism: and birth 46–54;
  • of prison-industrial complex 188–191, 196
• abortion: coercive 87;
  • enslaved women and 169;
  • experiences of 90–95;
  • mainstream movement and 189;
  • and social justice issues 79
• abuse: and birthing 106–111;
  • and postpartum recovery 60–61
• access issues 6;
  • granny midwives and 22;
  • HIV and 82–83, 85–86;
  • Joseph and 183–184;
  • paradox of 140;
  • in prison 191–192;
  • in Zimbabwe 40–41
• ACOG. See American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
• activism: approaches to 13;
  • health 174;
  • for midwifery 176–186;
  • for VBAC 161
• advanced maternal age 2, 5, 157
• advocacy: for birth options 147–148;
  • birth partners and 134;
  • formerly incarcerated people and 197;
  • Joseph and 183
• Affordable Care Act 73
• African women, controlling images of 32, 112, 167, 210n2
• ageism: medical system and 5;
  • and suppression of granny midwives 26–27, 172
• agency: HIV and 88–89;
• midwives and 123
• alliances: midwifery advocates and 180–183;
• obstetricians and 156–165, 213n1
• alternative birth movement: and consumerism 12–15;
• development of 7–8;
  • and granny midwives 8, 175; issues
• with 131–132, 174–175, 180–183;
• obstetricians and 156–157;
  • and pri...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Foreword, Shafia Monroe
• Foreword, Jeanne Flavin
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction Beyond Coercion and Malign Neglect: Black Women and the Struggle for Birth Justice
• I Birthing Histories
• II Beyond Medical versus Natural Redefining Birth Injustice
• III Changing Lives, One Birth at a Time
• IV Taking Back Our Power Organizing for Birth Justice
• Notes
• Index
• About the Contributors