Birthing Briefs: Alarming Racial Differences in Maternal Mortality

Flanders-Stepans, Mary Beth

doi:10.1624/105812400x87653

Cited by 36 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Notably, Black, American Indian, and Hispanic women, at highest risk for poor pregnancy and birth outcomes (Dominguez, 2008;Lu & Halfon, 2003), are also disproportionally represented in the criminal justice system (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008;Hamilton, Hoyert, Martin, Strobino, & Guyer, 2013;MacDorman, 2011). Thus, for women of color and American Indian women who are not incarcerated, risks of experiencing maternal mortality or morbidity (Flanders-Stepans, 2000), experiencing preterm labor and delivery (Culhane & Goldenberg, 2011), and giving birth to a low-birth-weight or small-for-gestational-age baby (Lu & Halfron, 2003;Grady, 2006) are significantly higher. Coupled with the additional risks associated with incarceration, there is great need for concern regarding this population.…”

Section: Characteristics Of Pregnant Incarcerated Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive justice for incarcerated mothers and advocacy for their infants and young children

Shlafer

Hardeman

Carlson

2019

Infant Mental Health Journal

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The United States has seen unprecedented growth in the number of incarcerated women, most of whom are mothers with minor children. Major public health concerns relate to the reproductive health of women in prisons and jails and the well‐being of their infants and young children. In the current article, we use a reproductive justice framework to examine the intersection of incarceration and maternal and child health. We review (a) current research on the reproductive health of incarcerated women, (b) characteristics and experiences of pregnant incarcerated women, (c) outcomes of infants and young children with incarcerated parents, (d) implications of research findings for policy and practice, and (e) the need for increased research, public education, and advocacy. We strongly recommend that correctional policies and practices be updated to address the common misconceptions and biases as well as the unique vulnerabilities and health needs of incarcerated women and their young children.

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Section: Characteristics Of Pregnant Incarcerated Womenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reproductive justice for incarcerated mothers and advocacy for their infants and young children

Shlafer

Hardeman

Carlson

2019

Infant Mental Health Journal

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“…Here is one concrete example. In the United States, black women are more likely to die from complications related to childbirth than white women (Flanders-Stepans 2000;Martin and Montagne 2017;Riley 2018;Hosseini 2019;Leonard et al 2019;Rabin 2019). Some claim that what partly explains this differential treatment is an implicit racial bias on the part of healthcare providers (Blair et al 2013;Penner et al 2014;Hall et al 2015;FitzGerald and Hurst 2017;Martin and Montagne 2017;Chuck 2018;Maina et al 2018;Riley 2018).…”

Section: Implicit Bias: a Recapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implicit bias: a sin of omission?

Loon

2021

Philosophical Explorations

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It is widely believed that implicit bias is common and that it contributes, in part, to the perpetuation of systemic injustice. Hence, the existence of implicit bias raises the question: can individuals be blameworthy for their implicit bias? Here, I consider what it is about implicit bias that renders agents blameworthy. I defend the claim that, when individuals omit to engage in activities that could prevent the influence of implicit bias on their behavior, they may be blamed for their implicit bias. The plausibility of my proposal depends on whether individuals are able to engage freely in such activities and on whether there exists an obligation not to be biased (broadly put). I will answer positively to the former question and open the way for an answer to the latter, and tougher, question.

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“…A structural approach to medical gaslighting is helpful here because it illustrates that the gaslighting in question is not simply from the presiding clinical provider: a tightly woven net of policies, training manuals, advisory boards, disciplinary and institutional procedures—even medical equipment—upholds the structured inattention to the reproductive health needs of (to follow the previous example) Black women, who continue to have the highest maternal mortality rates of any group for which metrics are kept 17 . Black newborns consistently die at twice the rate of white newborns, and Black mothers consistently die at three to four times that of whites (see Flanders-Stepans 2000; Howell et al 2013). The math is not hard, the finding already well-known among women of color.…”

Section: Medical Gaslightingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Gaslighting

Ruíz

2020

Hypatia

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This essay frames systemic patterns of mental abuse against women of color and Indigenous women on Turtle Island (North America) in terms of larger design-of-distribution strategies in settler colonial societies, as these societies use various forms of social power to distribute, reproduce, and automate social inequalities (including public health precarities and mortality disadvantages) that skew socioeconomic gain continuously toward white settler populations and their descendants. It departs from traditional studies in gender-based violence research that frame mental abuses such as gaslighting—commonly understood as mental manipulation through lying or deceit—stochastically, as chance-driven, interpersonal phenomena. Building on structural analyses of knowledge in political epistemology (Dotson 2012a; Berenstain 2016), political theory (Davis and Ernst 2017), and Indigenous social theory (Tuck and Yang 2012), I develop the notion of cultural gaslighting to refer to the social and historical infrastructural support mechanisms that disproportionately produce abusive mental ambients in settler colonial cultures in order to further the ends of cultural genocide and dispossession. I conclude by proposing a social epidemiological account of gaslighting that a) highlights the public health harms of abusive ambients for minority populations, b) illuminates the hidden rules of social structure in settler colonial societies, and c) amplifies the corresponding need for structural reparations.

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Birthing Briefs: Alarming Racial Differences in Maternal Mortality

Cited by 36 publications

References 2 publications

Reproductive justice for incarcerated mothers and advocacy for their infants and young children

Reproductive justice for incarcerated mothers and advocacy for their infants and young children

Implicit bias: a sin of omission?

Cultural Gaslighting

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