Main description:

There is a global crisis in maternal health care for black women. In the United States, black women are over three times more likely to perish from pregnancy-related complications than white women; their babies are half as likely to survive the first year. Many black women experience policing, coercion, and disempowerment during pregnancy and childbirth and are disconnected from alternative birthing traditions. This book places black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternity system and foregrounds black women's agency in the emerging birth justice movement. Mixing scholarly, activist, and personal perspectives, the book shows readers how they too can change lives, one birth at a time.

Contents:

I Birthing Histories 1 Queen Elizabeth Perry Turner: "Granny Midwife," 1931-1956 Darline Turner 2 Regulating Childbirth: Physicians and Granny Midwives in South Carolina Alicia D. Bonaparte 3 Between Traditional Knowledge and Western Medicine: Women Birthing in Postcolonial Zimbabwe Christina Mudokwenyu-Rawdon, Peggy Dube, Nester T. Moyo, and Stephen Munjanja II Beyond Medical versus Natural: Redefining Birth Injustice 4 An Abolitionist Mama Speaks: On Natural Birth and Miscarriage Viviane Saleh-Hanna 5 Mothering: A Post-C-Section Journey Jacinda Townsend 6 Confessions of a Black Pregnant Dad Syrus Marcus Ware 7 Birth Justice and Population Control Loretta J. Ross 8 Beyond Silence and Stigma: Pregnancy and HIV for Black Women in Canada Marvelous Muchenje and Victoria Logan Kennedyiv Contents 9 What I Carry: A Story of Love and Loss Iris Jacob 10 Images from the Safe Motherhood Quilt Ina May Gaskin and Laura Gilkey III Changing Lives, One Birth at a Time 11 Birthing Sexual Freedom and Healing: A Survivor Mother's Birth Story Biany Perez 12 Birth as Battle Cry: A Doula's Journey from Home to Hospital Gina Mariela Rodriguez 13 Sister Midwife: Nurturing and Reflecting Black Womanhood in an Urban Hospital Stephanie Etienne 14 A Love Letter to My Daughter: Love as a Political Act Haile Eshe Cole 15 New Visions in Birth, Intimacy, Kinship, and Sisterly Partnerships Shannon Gibney and Valerie Deus 16 I Am My Hermana's Keeper: Reclaiming Afro-Indigenous Ancestral Wisdom as a Doula Griselda Rodriguez 17 The First Cut Is the Deepest: A Mother-Daughter Conversation about Birth, Justice, Healing, and Love Pauline Ann McKenzie-Day and Alexis Pauline Gumbs IV Taking Back Our Power: Organizing for Birth Justice 18 Unexpected Allies: Obstetrician Activism, VBACs, and the Birth Justice Movement Christ-Ann Magloire and Julia Chinyere Oparah 19 Birthing Freedom: Black American Midwifery and Liberation Struggles Ruth Hays 20 Becoming an Outsider-Within: Jennie Joseph's Activism in Florida Midwifery Alicia D. Bonaparte and Jennie Joseph 21 Beyond Shackling: Prisons, Pregnancy, and the Struggle for Birth Justice Priscilla A. Ocen and Julia Chinyere Oparah