This week on, On Point with Juandolyn Stokes, we welcomed Teneele Bruce, Project Director of Pathways with Baltimore Healthy Start and Co-host of the BHS podcast, "Come to the Well." Bruce has also been a project team member on the Merck for Mothers Safer Childbirth Cities initiative.
Bruce shared valuable information with our listeners about maternal health including the fact that the U.S. is trailing behind many other countries when it comes to birth outcomes including infant mortality, although we spend the most money in healthcare.
According to Bruce, racism has also made its way into maternal healthcare-pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. She added Black women are 3-4 times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts.
Although we have an ample number of Black women who are interested in midwifery as a field, still only 2% are Black! In a field where representation matters, it is lacking most in terms of resources and healthcare professionals who look like us.
Juandolyn highlighted the irony that during slavery and the time periods beyond, midwives were how many Black babies in the community were delivered because we did not have access to formal healthcare. Yet, beginning around the 1960s, midwifery became white-washed and was capitalized as a field of medicine that saw traditional midwives as antiquated, say Bruce. Now classes and certifications are required, which excludes many interested Black women.
This topic and guest were of particular interest to Juandolyn because of her personal connection to it-her oldest sister died during childbirth.
Bruce added, "Black midwives are like gold because they are so hard to find."
