ABSTRACT
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.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |18 pages
Introduction Beyond Coercion and Malign neglect
part I|26 pages
Birthing Histories
chapter 3|11 pages
Between Traditional Knowledge and Western Medicine
part II|60 pages
Beyond Medical versus Natural Redefining Birth Injustice
part III|50 pages
Changing Lives, One Birth at a Time
chapter 17|10 pages
The First Cut Is the Deepest
part IV|43 pages
Taking Back Our Power Organizing for Birth Justice