Alabama’s dire maternal mortality rates, especially among Black women, lead to urgent calls for healthcare reform as experts emphasize listening and trust-building.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Alabama has one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, with Black women facing an even greater risk.
As Black Maternal Health Week concludes and National Minority Health Month comes to a close, attention is being brought to the stigmas surrounding this ongoing crisis.
According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, Black mothers in Alabama are more than twice as likely to die during or after childbirth compared to white mothers.
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A report from the Milken Institute covering 2023 shows the mortality rate for Black mothers in Alabama is 100 deaths per 100,000 live births. That figure is significantly higher than the state average and exceeds the national rate for Black women.
Medical and mental health professionals are sharing ways to improve outcomes, along with one woman recounting her personal experience with motherhood as a Black woman.
“I had a very difficult pregnancy,” said perinatal exercise specialist Jasmine Mitchell. “Unfortunately, being somebody who worked in the fitness industry, I was always moving prior to pregnancy. I knew my body very well, but when I was presenting the different issues, like the pain, the inability to eat, to my providers, everybody just brushed it off, like this is part of the process. You’ll be okay.”
Mitchell said her experience as a first-time mother was challenging, particularly when it came to interactions with medical providers.
Doctor Shawnita Sealy Jefferson, an epidemiologist with Ohio State University, said it is critical for health care providers to listen to their patients.
“I think that they first should learn about structural racism if they are not already familiar, and how it can and often does show up in the health care encounter,” Sealy Jefferson said. “They should advocate for Black women to be heard and respected, and their wishes taken into account when they are receiving and delivering the health care to these patients.”
Mental health is also a factor in the crisis. Huntsville psychotherapist Monretta Vega said providers must work to build trust with Black women, especially after negative experiences.
“Building trust with an African American female after she has had a negative experience is really going to be about exposure therapy and creating that safe space for that female,” Vega said. “Being able to provide her with confidence that you can be trusted as a therapist or as a provider, but then hearing her, seeing her, allowing her to be vulnerable without judgment.”
Mitchell said collaboration among health care providers is key. She is working to change the narrative by offering resources for parents at all stages of pregnancy, including hosting her event, Birth to Bounce Back.
“All of the resources, all the resource providers, all the birth workers, all the people who specialize in postpartum, especially when we are talking about people of color, making sure they are all there in one space,” Mitchell said. “Not just meeting mothers in that perinatal time period, but also that the providers are connecting with one another.”