To start off, When the Bough Breaks is an article in which it states that African American women have higher infant mortality rates than white American women. It is nearly twice as high as white American women. Even well-educated black women have more birth outcomes worse than white women who haven’t even finished high school. One issue that is a big factor causing this is stress caused by racism. According to “Can Stress Cause Premature Labor?” By Cherly Bird, RN. Chronic stress is a stressful situation occurs and is not resolved, or reoccurs. The body is not able to cope with the stressful situation and does not return to normal. Studies show that moms with more stress are more likely to go into labor early, so we can say that stress increases a mom's risk of premature labor. When you are stressed the body can react in different ways, either with blood pressure or hormones. Some things that can help control the stress is counseling, talking about how you feel can help. Also, exercising, or complimentary therapies are a good way to help be more relaxed during a pregnancy. First, I will give out some statistics of infant mortality rates in America. According to an Amnesty International report, two maternal deaths occur every day for African-American women. Even though 99% of birth-related deaths happen in developing countries, these numbers for African American women in a country with world renowned health facilities are discouraging. Some things you can do to manage your stress during pregnancy is inhale slowly as you count to 4. Push out your abdomen as you breathe in. you can let your shoulders and neck relax as you slowly exhale while counting to 6. And you can repeat these techniques and often as you need to. A helpful t... ... middle of paper ... ...to get rid of the child. Now that is it legal it helps to have a safer procedure. And it is shown that women who commit abortions can affect them by having future pregnancy that causes infant mortality. The good thing that over the recent years we have been seeing a slight declined in infant mortality rates among black women. But the rates are still high. The states with the highest rates are Mississippi and Alabama though the rates have also been declining. We are trying to improve as a nation to help these black American women out. Everybody has the rights to get every opportunity these African American women are willing to go for. Just because they don’t have money or health insurance or whatever it can be, they can go out there and ask for help or education but because they don’t see the stress as a problem they don’t think it’s a big of a deal to ask for help.
Infant mortality is considered a worldwide indicator of a nation’s health status. The United States still ranks 24th in infant mortality compared with other industrialized nations, even though infant mortality has declined steadily over the past several decades. Compared with the national average in 1996 of 7.2 deaths per 1,000 live births, the largest disparity is among blacks with a death rate of 14.2 per 1,000 in 1996 which is almost 2½ times that of white infants (6 deaths per 1,000 in 1996). American Indians as a whole have an infant death rate of 9 deaths per 1,000 in 1995, but some Indian communities have an infant mortality rate almost twice that of the national rate. The same applies to the Hispanic community, whose rate of 7.6 deaths per 1,000 births in 1995 doesn’t reflect the Puerto Rican community, whose rate was 8.9 deaths per 1,000 births in 1995.
Schetter, C. (2009). Stress Processes in Pregnancy and Preterm Birth. Current Directions In Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 18(4), 205-209. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01637.x
Cook, Selig, Wedge, and Gohn-Baube (1999) stated that an essential part of the country’s public health agenda is to improve access to prenatal care, particularly for economically disadvantaged women. I agree with this statement because access to care is very important for the outcome of a healthy mother and child. Improving access to prenatal care for disadvantaged women will not only save lives but also lighten the high financial, social, and emotional costs of caring for low weight babies. Some of the barriers that these women face are mainly structural where the availability of care is limited; the cost of care is a financial burden; and the time to seek care is problematic due to being single mothers working more than one job (Lia-Hoagberb, 1990). Additionally, there is the issue of prenatal care being delivered differently depending on one’s race. A study found that White mothers delivering ve...
If we were to apply a longitude exposure study over the span of 42 years from the time an inner-city child is born, we may conclude that life experiences resulting from potential malnutrition, underprivileged environments, and overall lack of health education are the leading contributors to adult African American deaths. Studies show that 8 of the 10 leading causes in the deaths of African Americans are medical disease, which with proper education and care may have been prevented and/or addressed earlier in their life to diagnose and treat. The fact is Heart Disease is the leading cause of deaths for African Americans. When compared to other ethnicities, some form of heart disease causes 24.5% of African American deaths. These numbers are astounding considering Blacks make up approximately only 14.2% of the total U.S. population. The contributing factor is lack of knowledge and family medical screening. Understanding the history of your genial line specific to your race and ...
In a 2006 study conducted by the CDC, it was reported that 53-56% of abortions were performed on white women between the ages of 20 and 29. Among the 46 states that provided data consistently during 1996--2006, a total of 835,134 abortions (98.7% of the total) were reported; the abortion rate was 16.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15--44 years, and the abortion ratio was 236 abortions per 1,000 live births. During the previous decade (1997--2006), reported abortion numbers, rates, and ratios decreased 5.7%, 8.8%, and 14.8%, respectively; most of these declines occurred before 2001. During the previous year (2005--2006), the total number of abortions increased 3.1%, and the abortion rate increased 3.2%; the abortion ratio was stable. (CDC, 2009)
"The Final Call." Black America's Painful Epidemic: Children without Fathers. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.
Rawlings, James S.; Rawlings, Virginia B.; Read, John A. "Prevalence of Low Birthweight and Preterm Delivery in Relation to the Interval between Pregnancies among White and Black Women." The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol 332, No 2, 1995, p 69-75.
Some doctors would say that the fetus is only a potential human being, John M. Swomley stated “because the fetus feels no pain, a function of the brain as yet undeveloped”, therefore no harm is being done towards the fetus. Many advocates would agree towards doctor Swomley’s statement compared to Christianity Today stating “ It is violence against children, a hideous act of poisoning or dismembering tiny bodies, then dumping them in a landfill or garbage disposal”. The biggest benefit of abortions are that the number of unwanted children are decreasing, with doctors philosophy of having good medical abortions that protect health and fertility, make abortions possible. This has been a tremendous achievement in individual health, helping women gain more dignity, therefore making our society more “responsible”. A woman’s choice allows them to become more empowered, it liberates them, and benefits their society even more.
Pregnancy outcomes are affected by racism and chronic stress due to many life’s factors such as social and economic. Studies have proven that the majority of African American babies are born premature and with weight problems in comparison to white American babies, and it is no a coincidence that these race is the one most affected by discrimination. Racism could be the answer to this dilemma because it is an issue people have been dealing with for decades, which has increase people worries to the point of becoming a chronic stress. A century ago, the average American lived only about 48 years, but as living conditions and medical care improve, people began living longer as mention of the “In Sickness and in Wealth” video. The society made possible for living conditions to improved, but still was not able to fight racism. For example, in the 1930’s the new social programs prevented an economic crisis from becoming an even worse health crisis by providing services that protected children and good health. The same happened when the returning veterans got the GI bill, offering them home...
O'Connor, P. (2008, October 18). US infant mortality rate now worse than 28 other countries. Retrieved June 9, 2010, from World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/mort-o18.shtml
Before women had rights to decide whether they could keep their baby, some states didn’t allow abortion, therefore requiring women to give birth to their child. In today’s current issues, abortion is still a controversial subject with millions of people supporting it or not supporting it. Every woman has the right to make changes to her own physical body, and those rights should not be taken away, according to the constitution. In the very famous case in 1973, “Roe v. Wade”, the United States Supreme Court legalized abortion throughout the first trimester of pregnancy. In the article, “Roe’s Pro-Life Legacy”, it is explained how after this movement, the right to abortion, lives have changed and led to lower abortion rates (Sheilds 2013.) After Roe v. Wade gave women the right to an abortion, women felt that their rights have been restored. The act of aborting is a woman’s choice, in which women should not be taken their rights away because many women need their own rights protected in cases where they doesn’t want to feel obligated to carry the child of a rapist, go through pregnancies that could end up in death of the mother, give birth to a babies who will suffer their whole life because of a severe physical and mental dysfunctions, they’re not financially fit, or they don’t have the support from the father because he left the wife and baby.
The health status of the African American has been declining over the last century. Studies have shown that African Americans have less access to appropriate health care and that includes preventative care for children and adults. African Americans are not only more susceptible to disease and illness; they are also more likely to die from them. This minority tends to have the worst indicators of all health minorities. So has life expectancy improved for African Americans? Yes, it has improved. “The life expectancy has improved greatly for all Americans during the last century.” (Black Demographics,’n.d.’) This paper will compare the health status of the African American and the barriers that
...If a pregnancy is unwanted, and the woman has to continue and have the child anyways, it could cause serious physical and mental problems to her personal well-being, but getting an abortion does not get rid of any physical or mental problems destined to come, and if she did not want to get pregnant that bad, then she should have been chaste.
Other techniques to reducing stress, is listening to music, pampering yourself a massage/spa day, talking it out to family/friends, baking/cooking, praying/meditating and even playing with your pet.
Pregnancy is an interesting time in women’s life, because she creates a new human to the world. Even though it’s an interesting time for the mother, it also could be dangerous time for the mother and the baby. Pregnancy is divided into three trimesters, and each trimester consists of three months. Complications happen throughout all the trimester, but the third trimester has a lot of complications. Complications in the third trimester are not just dangerous for the baby, but for the mother also.