13, 2024 - April 19, 2024 The Afro-American A5 THE BLACKwww.afro.com MEDIA AUTHORITYApril • AFRO.COM $2.00 $1.00
Volume 132 No. 37
APRIL 13, 2024 - APRIL 19, 2024
Black Maternal Health Week: An AFRO inside look at motherhood in America
Photo by Unsplash/ Eyasu Etsub
Photo by Unsplash/Jeferson Santu
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Each year, Black Maternal Health Week is recognized April 11-17. The week is used to highlight the joys and challenges of motherhood from conception to the postpartum period. Even as technology and science advance, experts say Black women are still disproportionately affected by miscarriage, complications such as high blood pressure during pregnancy and death before, during or after childbirth. This year, the AFRO spoke with women about motherhood, miscarriages and the choice to become a mother later in life. By Alexis Taylor AFRO Managing Editor ataylor@afro.com And Aria Brent AFRO Staff Writer abrent@afro.com
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Cristina Easton was 34 when she found out she miscarried her very first child. The first issue? She never even knew she was pregnant. “I was told in a very matter of fact way,” she recalls. “It changes you when you find out about a pregnancy that way. I never got the ‘Oh my gosh– I’m so excited,’ phase. I went to the emergency room because I was in significant pain.” Today, the experience and the coldness of it all sticks with her– even though she went on to have a healthy baby just two years later. Easton was just one of the women the AFRO spoke with for Black Maternal Health Week,
recognized each year April 11-17. “You spend your whole life trying not to get pregnant so you can go to school, get settled in your career and find the right person,” Easton told the AFRO. “I never thought about miscarriage until it happened.” And she wasn’t alone. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Black mothers were more than twice as likely to experience stillbirth compared to Hispanic and White mothers” in recent studies. The data is worse when it comes to Black maternal mortality. “Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women,” reports the CDC. “Multiple factors contribute to these disparities, such as variation in quality healthcare, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism and implicit bias. Social determinants of health prevent many people from racial and ethnic minority groups from having fair
opportunities for economic, physical and emotional health.” Experts have been ringing the alarm for years about rising maternal mortality in the Black community and solutions to the deaths which are– in large part–preventable. “Recommendations include addressing implicit bias and improving cultural humility in the healthcare sector,” according to the 2023 report titled, “Listen to the Whispers before They Become Screams: Addressing Black Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in the United States.” Other suggestions include “diversifying the workforce, incorporating social determinants of health and health disparities into the medical and health professions curriculum, exploring the impact of environmental and occupational exposures on maternal morbidity and mortality, addressing the impact of structural racism on health outcomes and improving social policies and programs.” Easton, now a 40-year-old education
consultant, agrees that awareness, a biasfree birthing team, close monitoring and community support kept her from becoming a statistic. As she was 35 when she conceived her second child, Easton says her doctor, Dr. Robert Atlas, and the team at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore watched her closely, monitoring everything while she carried her child through what was considered a “geriatric pregnancy,” due to her age. It was during this time, for example, that she became aware of her low blood pressure. “I credit my team because they were watching me,” said Easton. The World Health Organization (WHO) lists high blood pressure during pregnancy or postpartum as one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. When Easton’s birthing team saw a blood pressure result that would normally be deemed “regular,” they used the background information they had about her naturally low blood pressure and instead Continued on A3
Arizona outlaws abortion using law from 1864 By Tashi McQueen AFRO Political writer tmcqueen@afro.com The Arizona Supreme Court issued a ruling that created a near-total abortion ban in the state on April 9. The Arizona Supreme
Court, through the Planned Parenthood Arizona v. Kristin Mayes case, reinstated a criminal law from 1864 that nearly completely banned abortions in the state until the 1970s. “Freedom shouldn’t be dictated by your zip code.
When I’m in the Senate, I’ll fight like everything to eliminate the filibuster and make sure women across this country have access to abortion rights, IVF and the full spectrum of reproductive care,” said Angela Alsobrooks, a
U.S. Senate candidate for Maryland. “I can’t imagine what the women and families of Arizona are going through today. Know that we see you and we will not stop fighting until your freedoms are restored.” The reinstated law reads:
“A person who provides, supplies or administers to a pregnant woman, or procures such woman to take any medicine, drugs or substance, or uses or employs any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of such woman, unless it is necessary to save her life, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state Continued on A3
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The Arizona Supreme Court used a law passed in the 1800s to ban nearly all abortions in Arizona on April 9. Arizona Supreme Court Justices from left; William G. Montgomery, John R Lopez IV, Vice Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer, Chief Justice Robert M. Brutinel, Clint Bolick and James Beene
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