Birthing Black Mothers

Birthing Black Mothers PDF

Author: Jennifer C. Nash

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2021-07-06

Total Pages: 149

ISBN-13: 1478021721

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In Birthing Black Mothers Black feminist theorist Jennifer C. Nash examines how the figure of the “Black mother” has become a powerful political category. “Mothering while Black” has become synonymous with crisis as well as a site of cultural interest, empathy, fascination, and support. Cast as suffering and traumatized by their proximity to Black death—especially through medical racism and state-sanctioned police violence—Black mothers are often rendered as one-dimensional symbols of tragic heroism. In contrast, Nash examines Black mothers’ self-representations and public performances of motherhood—including Black doulas and breastfeeding advocates alongside celebrities such as Beyoncé, Serena Williams, and Michelle Obama—that are not rooted in loss. Through cultural critique and in-depth interviews, Nash acknowledges the complexities of Black motherhood outside its use as political currency. Throughout, Nash imagines a Black feminist project that refuses the lure of locating the precarity of Black life in women and instead invites readers to theorize, organize, and dream into being new modes of Black motherhood.

Birthing Justice

Birthing Justice PDF

Author: Julia Chinyere Oparah

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1317277201

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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.

Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant!

Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant! PDF

Author: Shanicia Boswell

Publisher: Mango Media Inc.

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1642504998

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What to Expect When Black, Pregnant, and Expecting “This book stands as the modern-day guide to birthing while Black.” ―Angelina Ruffin-Alexander, certified nurse midwife 2021 International Book Awards finalist in Health: Women’s Health #1 New Release in Pregnancy & Childbirth and Minority Demographic Studies, Medical Ethics, and Women's Health Nursing Written with lighthearted humor and cultural context, Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant! discusses the stages of pregnancy, labor, and motherhood as they pertain to pregnant Black women today. Tailored to today’s pregnant Black woman. In the age of social media, how do pregnant women communicate their big announcement? What are the best protective hairstyles for labor? Most importantly, how many pregnancy guides focus on issues like Black maternal birth rates and what it really looks like to be Black, pregnant, and single today? Written for the modern pregnant Black woman, Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant! is the essential what to expect when you're expecting guide to understanding pregnancy from a millennial Black mom’s point of view. Interviews, stories, and advice for pregnant women. Written by Black Moms Blog founder, the book tackles hard topics in a way that truly resonate with modern Black moms. With stories from her experiences through pregnancy, labor, and motherhood, and lessons learned as a mother at twenty-two, Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant! focuses on the common knowledge Black pregnant mothers should consider when having their first baby. It also shares topics beneficial to pregnant Black women on their second, third, or fourth born. Find answers to questions: Do I financially plan for my birth? Can I maintain my relationship and friendships during motherhood? Will I self-advocate for my rights in a world that already views me as less than? If you enjoyed books like Medical Apartheid, 50 Things To Do Before You Deliver, The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy, or Birthing Justice, then you’ll love Oh Sis, You’re Pregnant!

Reproductive Injustice

Reproductive Injustice PDF

Author: Dana-Ain Davis

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1479812277

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A troubling study of the role that medical racism plays in the lives of black women who have given birth to premature and low birth weight infants Black women have higher rates of premature birth than other women in America. This cannot be simply explained by economic factors, with poorer women lacking resources or access to care. Even professional, middle-class black women are at a much higher risk of premature birth than low-income white women in the United States. Dána-Ain Davis looks into this phenomenon, placing racial differences in birth outcomes into a historical context, revealing that ideas about reproduction and race today have been influenced by the legacy of ideas which developed during the era of slavery. While poor and low-income black women are often the “mascots” of premature birth outcomes, this book focuses on professional black women, who are just as likely to give birth prematurely. Drawing on an impressive array of interviews with nearly fifty mothers, fathers, neonatologists, nurses, midwives, and reproductive justice advocates, Dána-Ain Davis argues that events leading up to an infant’s arrival in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and the parents’ experiences while they are in the NICU, reveal subtle but pernicious forms of racism that confound the perceived class dynamics that are frequently understood to be a central factor of premature birth. The book argues not only that medical racism persists and must be considered when examining adverse outcomes—as well as upsetting experiences for parents—but also that NICUs and life-saving technologies should not be the only strategies for improving the outcomes for black pregnant women and their babies. Davis makes the case for other avenues, such as community-based birthing projects, doulas, and midwives, that support women during pregnancy and labor are just as important and effective in avoiding premature births and mortality.

Birthing a Mother

Birthing a Mother PDF

Author: Elly Teman

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 0520259637

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This is an ethnography which probes the intimate experience of gestational surrogate motherhood. Teman shows how surrogates and intended mothers carefully negotiate their cooperative endeavour.

Mama's Little Baby

Mama's Little Baby PDF

Author: Dennis Brown

Publisher: Plume Books

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13:

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Beautifully packaged, this comprehensive guide celebrates the unique culture and heritage of African-Americans while providing important parenting information. Photos & drawings.

Birthing a Slave

Birthing a Slave PDF

Author: Marie Jenkins Schwartz

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-03-30

Total Pages: 414

ISBN-13: 0674034929

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The deprivations and cruelty of slavery have overshadowed our understanding of the institution's most human dimension: birth. We often don't realize that after the United States stopped importing slaves in 1808, births were more important than ever; slavery and the southern way of life could continue only through babies born in bondage. In the antebellum South, slaveholders' interest in slave women was matched by physicians struggling to assert their own professional authority over childbirth, and the two began to work together to increase the number of infants born in the slave quarter. In unprecedented ways, doctors tried to manage the health of enslaved women from puberty through the reproductive years, attempting to foster pregnancy, cure infertility, and resolve gynecological problems, including cancer. Black women, however, proved an unruly force, distrustful of both the slaveholders and their doctors. With their own healing traditions, emphasizing the power of roots and herbs and the critical roles of family and community, enslaved women struggled to take charge of their own health in a system that did not respect their social circumstances, customs, or values. Birthing a Slave depicts the competing approaches to reproductive health that evolved on plantations, as both black women and white men sought to enhance the health of enslaved mothers--in very different ways and for entirely different reasons. Birthing a Slave is the first book to focus exclusively on the health care of enslaved women, and it argues convincingly for the critical role of reproductive medicine in the slave system of antebellum America.

Black Feminism Reimagined

Black Feminism Reimagined PDF

Author: Jennifer C. Nash

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2018-12-06

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1478002255

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In Black Feminism Reimagined Jennifer C. Nash reframes black feminism's engagement with intersectionality, often celebrated as its primary intellectual and political contribution to feminist theory. Charting the institutional history and contemporary uses of intersectionality in the academy, Nash outlines how women's studies has both elevated intersectionality to the discipline's primary program-building initiative and cast intersectionality as a threat to feminism's coherence. As intersectionality has become a central feminist preoccupation, Nash argues that black feminism has been marked by a single affect—defensiveness—manifested by efforts to police intersectionality's usages and circulations. Nash contends that only by letting go of this deeply alluring protectionist stance, the desire to make property of knowledge, can black feminists reimagine intellectual production in ways that unleash black feminist theory's visionary world-making possibilities.

Having Your Baby

Having Your Baby PDF

Author: Dr. Hilda Hutcherson

Publisher: One World/Ballantine

Published: 2010-12-22

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 0307776034

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African-American women face unique challenges during pregnancy. Here is a they can turn to for medical information, health advice, and emotional support during this exhilarating, and sometimes anxious, time. Dr. Hilda Hutcherson, an esteemed Ob-Gyn, explains all the bodily changes, feelings, and medical procedures you may encounter when pregnant. From planning a pregnancy to caring for your newborn, Dr. Hutcherson provides comforting wisdom from her years of experience as a doctor and mother of four. Most important, she addresses such potential risks as fibroid, diabetes, lupus, high blood pressure, and skin conditions. This extraordinary resource offers medically sound and reassuring advice on choosing a care provider ... caring for yourself successfully in each trimester ... the signs and symptoms that necessitate a call to a health care practitioner...minimizing the chances of birth defects ... breastfeeding basics ... and much more. The first childbirth encyclopedia written for African-American mothers-to-be, Having Your Baby addresses all the issues, concerns, and questions you may have about pregnancy and childbirth.

The Black Body in Ecstasy

The Black Body in Ecstasy PDF

Author: Jennifer C. Nash

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2014-03-31

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0822377039

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In The Black Body in Ecstasy, Jennifer C. Nash rewrites black feminism's theory of representation. Her analysis moves beyond black feminism's preoccupation with injury and recovery to consider how racial fictions can create a space of agency and even pleasure for black female subjects. Nash's innovative readings of hardcore pornographic films from the 1970s and 1980s develop a new method of analyzing racialized pornography that focuses on black women's pleasures in blackness: delights in toying with and subverting blackness, moments of racialized excitement, deliberate enactments of hyperbolic blackness, and humorous performances of blackness that poke fun at the fantastical project of race. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, critical race theory, and media studies, Nash creates a new black feminist interpretative practice, one attentive to the messy contradictions—between delight and discomfort, between desire and degradation—at the heart of black pleasures.