Just before her senior year at Spelman College, Ruha Benjamin discovered she was pregnant. It was the year 2000, and all around her she encountered conservative rhetoric describing a "crisis" of young Black mothers. Benjamin, a sociology student, decided to focus her research on obstetrics. She found that the real crisis of Black childbearing was neither youth nor poverty—it was death. Then, as now, rates of maternal mortality and preterm birth are far higher for Black women in the United States than for white women. Why, she wondered, are doctor-assisted hospital births the standard of care, while studies and anecdotal evidence show that the services of midwives and doulas lead to a safer, healthier experience for both parent and child? Benjamin opted for a home delivery with the support and guidance of a midwife. She'd spent nine months in the library stacks reading up on the medical system's racist effects on people like her, but once her body started "contracting, leaking, tearing, and howling," she no longer felt like a statistic. A week after the birth, rested and emboldened, she stood in front of her Spelman classmates and delivered the year's graduation address. – Camille Bromley | Features Editor |
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