Yesterday I didn't know what a doula was now I know that every black family needs one. Tell all your friends that before starting a family they need to catch this episode of the 10th man
Twice a month the news media tell us that the United States has the highest rate of maternal mortality and infant mortality in the developed world. They run two different stories , the first one being the racist tale of how the mortality rates for black women are much higher than for white women, and the second is how the rates for the United states are much worse than the rest of the developed world. Those two stories are in fact the same story because it is the infant and maternal mortality rates for black families driving up the numbers for the United states.
Infant mortality is so bad that when the gun banners claim that guns kill more children and teens than cars they have to leave out infant mortality because infant mortality claims more childhood victims than all other causes put together.
Addressing this would be a great opportunity for community health improvement. Unfortunately the press and the government want to just blame racism and implement government plans and socialized medicine without any guaranty of actually helping the people.
Women love fame and Arline Geronimus of the University of Michigan is featured in the New York Times in April 2023 plugging her book on how years of racism weakens the black woman’s body. She says outright that it is not lifestyle choices or genetics giving little hope to the average woman, but she’s selling books.
In June 2022 the Times interviewed Linda Villarosa, also printing a new book on racism in obstetrics.
In July of that year it was Tonya Lewis Lee, wife of Spike Lee, announcing her new documentary on the topic.
Women like these seeking publicity is as old as Adam and Eve and the prize goes to Serena Williams who suffered near tragic complications of pregnancy. With a history of blood clots, and having her first child at age forty, she had to have an emergency C-section then be given blood thinners for a clot, then nearly bled to death out her sutures, but rather than gratitude for the doctors who saved her life, she makes TV appearances accusing them of racism.
The average woman now thinks there’s nothing she can do, while the government reacts to the stories in the press by producing two omnibus acts – packages of several bills which promise to spend money without a commitment to solve the problem.
We’ll make the point that maternal and infant mortality are caused by simple controllable factors with a racial component that has to be recognized. There are direct addressable causes – it’s not a distant white man pulling levers.
Because wealthier and educated black women suffer higher rates of maternal mortality than wealthier white women it is said that racism must be the cause. That logical fallacy is called the argument from ignorance – “it’s not tied to wealth so it must be racism”. This fallacy is a common with the left, but separating it from wealth does not make racism. It makes the reason unknown.
And why would you even venture that it’s tied to wealth when the maternal death rate for black women is higher than the rate for Mexico where half of the country is impoverished?
The New England Journal of medicine reports that infant mortality is high even for college educated women – therefore racism. However the same report indicates other factors such as all black mothers are less likely to be married. All black fathers are less likely to be college educated.
All black women even the college educated are less likely to have early or any prenatal care. All black mothers including college educated experience low birth weight two times the rates of white women and very low birth weights three times the rates of white women. Low birth weight is the primary cause of infant mortality.
I’ll be accused of blaming the woman so I’ll just admit it because real problems black women are having are not being identified. It is known that low birth weight, eclampsia and other problems are linked to behaviors of the mother like smoking, drinking, drug use, poor nutrition and the failure to receive early prenatal care. Five items of the mother’s behavior.
The year 2021 was very bad for maternal mortality because of Covid which has multiple effects on pregnant women. Yet black mothers have the lowest rate of vaccination at 6%
Black American women born in Africa have 26% lower risk of eclampsia than black women born in America. It's hard to see a racial component especially when the risk profile is reversed for foreign born versus native born white and Hispanic women.
But if you truly believe that white supremacy is the reason black families are losing their babies and their women then go ahead and wait for Biden and the Democrats to fix that problem. Or you can force your way past the racism real or imaginary and get to the doctor early in your pregnancy
if you really care that is. It looks like white women on average simply care more about their babies. Abortions have been going down for white women for years as are live births. That tells us two things: abortions’ going down tells us white women are not putting the stress of unwanted pregnancies on their bodies. And with both abortions and live births going down that tells us white women are planning their pregnancies. Therefore, when a white woman gets pregnant the child is wanted and she is motivated to get the best care for it.
But black women on the other hand have consistently had the highest abortion rates. They have three times the unwanted pregnancies of white women. Highest rate of unwanted pregnancy, highest rate of abortion, lowest rate of prenatal care and highest rate of infant and maternal mortality.
Do you think it’s definitely systemic racism.
Well you’re not alone. The United Nations has condemned the US for failing to eliminate these racial disparities ; they are human rights violations. But did you know the US, UK and Canada are the only OECD nations tracking race? None of the European countries we are always being compared with keeps track of race – in some countries it’s illegal. So we don’t really know how we compare to other nations in terms of racial disparity.
This isn’t a reach. A few countries keep track at least in this one area. Sweden noticed same problem of disproportionate maternal mortality among black mothers. Their death rate for women of color is seven times white women versus three times in the US. They are implementing a program of “doulas” – older women serving as pregnancy coaches to bring the numbers down.
Some of the lowest mortality nations in the world are New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Like Sweden they have socialized medicine. Nevertheless they also have significant disparities in outcomes for European versus indigenous peoples.
Back in the US – you notice all the comparisons are between African Americans and white people. Why compare to white people? The lowest maternal mortality is not among whites – it is among Hispanics. All the news articles constantly harp on white versus black, white versus black. They are exploiting the technicality where they can consider Hispanic either white or separately. Fine – let’s combine white and Hispanic.
What do you think is the makeup of healthcare workers? It’s minority white. While the US population is majority white at 76%, only 36 percent of healthcare workers are white. Black people only make up 12 percent of the population but they are almost a quarter of the healthcare workers. Those percentage ratios are exactly flipped: half the percentage of whites in the population is in healthcare, double the percentage of blacks in the population is in healthcare. So who’s racist?
There’s no obvious answer to the problem. Every article I read and every synopsis of a study I looked at was obviously flawed. You can easily tell they are lying but that doesn’t make the truth any more clear.
If you think lying is too strong a word, just look at the New York Times for March 2023. They report on the surge in maternal deaths due to Covid all over Europe and the rest of the world in 2021 and 2022. The thing is maternal deaths went down in a few countries in 2022, including the US – they left out this good news.
Then there’s genetics. This may be tasteless but everybody who loves dogs knows that the short-nosed breeds have difficulty giving birth. We don’t call the veterinarians racist when a French Bulldog bitch has a bad birthing outcome. We warn people of the risk and look for a cure.
The best general advice for any expectant mother is to have support, prenatal care and follow doctor’s instructions. Sweden introduced the doula program, the lady life coaches for pregnancy. If you have the money, they are available in some areas. Your church will help you, and so will many crisis pregnancy centers – the anti-abortion clinics. There may be charity groups in your area – I recommend a search using the keywords “mentoring mothers” which gives a hundred million hits.
Sometimes being held accountable is bad news. But this time putting responsibility where it truly lies, empowers the people most affected. And that’s good news for everybody.
Thanks for your attention.