This year marks the sixth annual Black Maternal Health Week! Founded and led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, this week-long (April 11-17) campaign aims to build awareness, activism, and community-building to amplify the voices, perspectives, and lived experiences of Black mamas.
The relentless attacks on reproductive rights happening across the country have tried to place obstacles in the way of freedom. This year’s campaign theme “Our Bodies Belong to Us: Restoring Black Autonomy and Joy,” speaks to the strength, power, and resilience of Black mamas and their unassailable right to live freely, safely, and joyfully.
Black mamas have always been the guide and bridge for families, communities, movements, and waves of change. When celebrating their powerful efforts, we must also address how racism and discrimination harm maternal health. Factors such as lower quality health care, implicit bias from health care providers, unsupportive work polices (including lack of parental leave), and underlying chronic conditions contribute to the oppressive disparities they face.
-
Black women in Ohio are 2.2 times more likely to experience a pregnancy-related death than white women.
-
According to the National Library of Medicine, Black people are more susceptible to chronic conditions that increase the risk of poor maternal and fetal health outcomes due to the scientifically documented stress caused by systemic racism.
-
Black women disproportionately lack necessary reproductive health care—including contraception access and counseling, abortion, STI screenings, and reproductive screenings leaving them vulnerable to many risk factors around pregnancy.
Maternal health doesn’t begin when a person gets pregnant and doesn’t end when a pregnancy is over. Black mamas deserve to be seen, embraced, and supported at all stages of their reproductive lives.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio (PPGOH) provides empowered education and essential reproductive health services — including cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, birth control, abortion, wellness visits, and more — to protect the health of Black communities across Ohio – no matter what.
Our Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program used a specialized model of developing local Black Community Health Workers (CHW) in Mahoning and Trumbull County neighborhoods, both with high Black mortality rates. In Columbus, the CelebrateOne Black Infant Mortality program partners with PPGOH to provide reproductive health education in middle and high schools as an early prevention program for pregnancy among teens. In Cleveland, the First Year Cleveland program benefits from our in-school reproductive education in communities with the highest rates of pregnancy among teens and high rates of Black infant mortality.
We believe that high-quality health care should be accessible to all, and we will continue to work alongside our reproductive justice partners to create a world where everyone can get the care they need without fear, bias, or barriers.
To learn more about Black Maternal Health Week, visit the Black Mamas Matter Alliance website.
Tags: