III. Literature Review
Stress of Racism can cause Premature Births for Black Moms
Introduction:
Pre-Mature birth has been an uprising pandemic in the United States for women of color. Research suggests that pre-mature births amongst the African American community are prevalent because of race related stress during or before pregnancy. Stress of Racism can cause Premature Births for Black Moms was published by Janet Taylor on November 23, 2009. Taylor wrote this article from an academic perspective. She believes that fellow African American women should be aware of the impact that race related stress can have on the fetus.
Data Evaluation:
Statistics: More than 540,000 babies are born too early, African-American women at every socioeconomic level have higher rates of preterm birth and infant mortality, Educated African-American women have a pre-mature birth rate of 12 per 1000 births.
Taylor suggests that chronic racism over the lifetime of African-American women affects their birth outcomes. This research would be considered both qualitative and quantitative because the quality of life can affect the outcome of an individual’s birth.
Conclusion:
I plan to use this research to argue that pre-mature birth in African American women does have a direct correlation to race related stress. I will use this article to inform young African American women on the affects of any type of stress during a pregnancy, but more specifically, race related stress.
Minority Women are at Greatest Risk for Having Premature Babies
Introduction:
Pre-mature birth rates in African-American women have had the interest of scientist for quite some time. These are several risk factors that contribute to pre-mature birth such as socioeconomic status, demograph...
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...d to see why African American women are susceptible to race related stress and how it has a direct correlation to pre-mature births. Surveys for the mass population of women have asked questions related to race such as: how often does one think of their race on a day-by-day basis? How many different races did one interact with while growing up? How often does one compare themselves to other races? When asking these questions, depending upon the answers it may be safe to imply that many African American females pre-mature births are associated with race related stress.
Works Cited
Burke-Galloway, D. L. (2011). Minority Women are at Greatest Risk for Having Premature Babies. Doctors for America, 1.
Taylor, J. (2009, November 3). theGrio.theGrio. Retrieved March 6, 2014, from http://thegrio.com/2009/11/23/stress-of-racism-can-cause-premature-births-for-black-women
Statistics show the impact that preemies are causing as the rate of preterm birth increases every day. Any part of the world is affected no matter how advanced they are in technology. “One of every eight infants born in the United States is premature babies” (Medline Plus). These statistics are extremely high, however people can change it by getting involved in the community and helping preemies have a less chance to lose in their battle for life. In 2003; 499,008 infants were born prematurely (National Center for Health Statistics). The rates of preterm births have increased over the years. "In 1995: 11.0% of live births were born preterm, In 2006: 12.8% of live births were born preterm"(March of Dimes-Peristats). As the numbers keep increasing, many families are suffering and losing hope for they’re babies. African American women have the highest rate of preterm birth in 2004 with a 17.6% (Reedy, 2007). These statistics demonstrate the high frequenc...
In the United States about 1.6 million pregnancies end in abortion. Women with incomes under eleven thousand are over three times more likely to abort than those with incomes above twenty-five thousand. Unmarried women are four to five times more likely to abort than married and the abortion rate has doubled for 18 and 19 year olds. Recently the U.S. rate dropped 6 percent overall but the rate of abortion among girls younger than 15 jumped 18 percent. The rate among minority teens cli...
Dickerson, Bette J. 1995. African American Single Mothers: Understanding their lives and Families. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks.
There is no debate about the catastrophic breakdown of the black family dynamic over the past 50 years; and it haunts us today. Our nation’s 1st African
Williams, D. R., & Jackson, P. (2014, April 1). Health Affairs. Social Sources Of Racial Disparities In Health. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/2/325.short
When it comes to parenting styles, there is a clear distinction and gap between African-Americans and white American families. These practices are stemmed from historical and cultural traditions that are passed from one generation to another. Pregnancy, child-rearing, and parenting techniques between black and white people are significantly affected by various social and economic factors.
This underserved community has many problems such as preterm birth, teen pregnancy, low use of breastfeeding, and high rate of maternal mortality. Preterm birth is highly prevalent in the community, with 15.5% higher than the Healthy People goal of 11.4%. In addition, teen pregnancy is another concern in the community with being the highest in the Queens, New York City and New York State rate. Queens also has the lowest level of breastfeeding compare to other areas in the New York City. Maternal mortality is three times higher in African American in the NYC area than those of other races. This program focuses on reducing these health disparities and improves the health of those
This mishap not only reveals a gap in medical practice but more importantly it shadows the reality of racial oppression that prevails in American society today. Despite Cramblett’s persistent claim that the issue is not race, her disputes made in her lawsuit filed against the sperm bank are evidently focused on racial complications (Clifton 2014). Two years after the birth of her baby, Cramblett began experiencing issues and burdens associated with having a coloured baby that otherwise would not have existed if it was a white child. Cramblett admits to being brought up in a culturally insensitive family, with little knowledge of black people and their culture (Clifton 2014). Some of the distress that Cramblett voiced was the inconvenience and stress with having to take her baby to a special hairdresser tailored for black people where she was not overtly welcome, the effects of raising her child in a racially exclusive neighborhood and even within her own culturally insensitive family (Clifton 2014). This story brought forth an ugly truth of the racist and cruel reality that the black community have to face in America every day. Cramblett immediately attempted to make an escape when she inched dangerously
Researchers first proposed that education and high social economic status remark a healthier birth rate among individuals, especially for white American’s. During the film Unnatural causes: Is inequality making us sick? (PBS, 2008), studies consisted of African American premature birth rate three times higher in comparison to white American’s with or without an education. Researchers also imposed to raise African Americans who had a higher education in comparison to white Americans and results still consist of African Americans to have a higher premature birth rate. Overall conducting multiple studies, researchers found that there is no correlation between higher social economic status and birth rates, restating that socioeconomic status do not affect premature birth
Eugenics has impacted the reproduction cycle of black women for years. According to google, eugenics is the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. It was developed by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race. The Eugenics movement began in the U.S in the late 19th century. It was mainly use to stop the transmission of negative or undesirable traits from generation to generations. The abortionist spent time tracking family histories and concluded that people deemed to be unfit more often came from families that were poor, low in social standing, immigrant, and other minorities. The abortionist plan was to sterilize unfit individuals to prevent them from passing on their negative traits. The committees were convened to often solutions to the problem of growing number of undesired individuals in the U.S. populations. This movement led to African Americans abortions rate to be high because they sterilized African Americans so they were not able to have kids/offspring. During that time period 65,000 Africans Americans women was sterilized without consent while having other medical procedures done. Margaret Sanger was a strong believer of Eugenics.
Thus, the factors that contribute to health dipartites in relation to race/ethnicity and SES must differ. Factors that contribute to health disparities in relation to race/ethnicity include language and cultural barriers as well as racism and discrimination experienced by minority groups. Individuals who are subject to racism are more likely to experience psychological distress, depression/anxiety, substance use and physical health problems (Williams, 1999). Higher rates of hypertension among African Americans can be partially explained by exposure to the chronic stress of perceived racism (Clark, 2000). Stress related to discrimination is not accounted for in SES measures. A clear example of this is the fact that African Americans with college degrees have higher rates of infant mortality than Whites without a high school degree (Jackson, 2007). This health disparity is not related to SES but instead race/ethnicity and unfortunately, the experience of racism and
Socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, immigrants status, low educational attainment geographic area of residence, multiple gestation pregnancies are associated with significantly increased risk of low birth weight and preterm delivery. Premature infants are at greater risk of long –term health and mental problems such as:
Motherhood. The journey of motherhood can mark a new chapter in a woman’s life. Whether you’re a mother of two or a soon to be mother, motherhood is a path that can affect every woman differently. Being a mother isn’t easy. There are days where it can be stressful, emotional or exhausting. As a mother you maybe thinking about having to change dirty diapers or cleaning up the messes that your child makes. A concern that a mother should never have is whether she’s going to be brutalized by a police officer. Motherhood is wielded as a weapon of policing and punishing Black mothers and mothers of color. In my paper I will discuss the police brutality, policing and criminalization of Black mothers and mothers of color.
According to Dehlendorf’s study done on disparities in abortion rates, lower socioeconomic status individuals have an abortion rate of 52 abortions per 1,000 reproductive aged women. While wealthier socioeconomic status individuals only have 9 abortions per 1,000 reproductive aged women (Dehlendorf et al.,2013). Now, taking into consideration the number of unintended pregnancies that occur within the different socioeconomic classes and racial groups is also important to understand this issue. A 2008 survey done by the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) reported that 70% of all pregnancies among African American women were unintended. 57% of all pregnancies among Hispanics were unintended, while 42% among white women were unintended. This is a significantly higher rate that has more to it than people being reckless. This is a problem of social stratification between power and wealth. Which leads to a strain in equal opportunity and equality of condition within the higher poverty rate
I began to investigate the relationship between social factors and health as a research assistant at the University of Michigan Sleep Disorders Center. During my five-year tenure there, I facilitated projects that primarily investigated the relationship between maternal sleep quality and maternal and perinatal outcomes. As I became immersed in emerging maternal sleep research, I was alarmed by the scarcity of studies examining social differences in sleep quality. Therefore, I independently investigated how race influenced the relationship between sleep q...