Please listen to https://www.npr.org/player/embed/549532978/549533233# Next, please watch the following TED Talk from doula/writer/activist Miriam Zoila Perez. https://www.ted.com/talks/miriam_zoila_perez_how_racism_harms_pregnant_women_and_what_can_help/up-next Next, read this brief article “Layers of Inequality: Power, Policy, & Health” by Drs. Richard Davis and James Collins (both neonatologists). Last, watch this 30-min documentary exploring maternal/child health, birth outcomes, and race in the United States. Click here to open in a new tab: https://vcu.kanopy.com/video/when-bough-breaks-0 SW & Healthcare Assignment: After completing this material, please answer the reflection prompts. 1.How are pregnancy outcomes affected by racism and chronic stress ? How are racial differences in birth outcomes not reducible to class alone? Before now, have you ever considered racism to be a risk factor related to health? Dr. Jones says that the chronic stress of racism is like gunning the engine of a car, never letting up. What does she mean? How does this affect the body over time? Consider our discussion of trauma earlier in the semester. . Lu references the life-course perspective. How does it broaden conventional approaches, which focus primarily on risk factors during pregnancy? What are the mechanisms by which experiences outside the body and before conception can affect birth outcomes? How does the life-course perspective support a link between racism and premature birth or low birth-weight babies? Anderson says: People would think Im living the American Dream: a lawyer with two cars, two and a half kids, the dog, the porch, a good husband, great family. Kim did everything right and still her daughter was born too early. What conditions in her life might have impacted her birth outcome? What are the implications for other women of color, and what possible solutions can you suggest?Show more
