Update: Public access to this training has expired, but the resource list and links to the studies remain available below. This Grand Rounds is still accessible to VBAC Facts® Professional Members. Membership is for perinatal professionals who are passionate about increasing VBAC access in their community. Membership enables you to easily integrate the VBAC evidence into your practice so you can provide cesarean parents accurate information. Sliding scale available for BIPOC. Learn more here.

What you will learn

In this training, we focus on systemic racism in maternity care by lifting the voices of the following Black researchers:

• Lucinda Canty, RN, MSN, C.N.M. who highlights the resilience of Black women who nearly died during pregnancy, birth, or postpartum as well as opportunities for improvement for providers
• Karen Scott, MPH, MD, FACOG who discusses how the individual blame of Black women is a scapegoat for systematic racism, the actual cause of health disparities for Black mothers
• Monica McLemore RN, PhD, FAAN who centers the needs of Black women in the the first study of its kind on preterm birth
• Shafia Monroe, DEM, CDT, MPH who offers providers long term and immediate solutions to disparities
• Ifeyinwa Asiodu PhD, RN, IBCLC who criticizes the high levels of unnecessary cesareans in the US and calls out the role that historical and systemic racism plays

What people say about this training

Here is what people say about the training:

“What a great and illuminating presentation about systemic racism and its subsequent outcomes.” – Laura, Perinatal Mental Health Provider

“Thank you very much for this presentation! It motivated me in my own birth professional journey.” – Michelle, Chiropractor

More about the researchers

Lucinda Canty, RN, MSN, CNM is a midwife, teacher and researcher in Connecticut. Read her professional biography, listen to a radio interview with her discussing the importance of doulas, and look at her beautiful artwork illustrating the experience of being black and pregnant in the US.

Canty, Lucinda (2020) “It’s Not Always Rainbows and Unicorns: The Lived Experience of Severe Maternal Morbidity among Black Women”. Doctoral Dissertations. 2426. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/2426

Karen Scott, MPH, MD, FACOG is an OBGyn and researcher at USCF. Well, really she calls herself a  “dissident, disruptive, and recovering” board certified OB GYN and she often speaks up against injustice in obstetric circles. She is currently running a research project, The SACRED Birth Study, which looks to support community led change to find equitable quality improvements to end violence and gendered racism in hospitals.

Scott, K. A., Britton, L., & McLemore, M. R. (2019). The ethics of perinatal care for black women: dismantling the structural racism in “Mother Blame” narratives. The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing, 33(2), 108-115. https://doi.org/10.1097/jpn.0000000000000394

Monica McLemore, RN, PhD, FAAN is a PhD nurse researcher at UCSF who focuses her teaching and research efforts on reproductive justice for people with uteruses. McLemore was just featured in an interview discussing Black Maternal Health and COVID-19 and she consistently speaks out about health equity injustice.

Franck, L. S., McLemore, M. R., Williams, S., Millar, K., Gordon, A. Y., Williams, S., … & Nelson, F. (2020). Research priorities of women at risk for preterm birth: findings and a call to action. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 20(1), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-019-2664-1

Shafia Monroe, DEM, CDT, MPH is a Midwifery, community organizer and educator. She is a founding member of many organizations working for change for black birthing people including Shafia Monroe Consulting and ICTC (now the NAABB). She also provides cultural competency consultation and continuing education for providers and organizations.

Monroe, S. M. (2020). Perinatal Disparities and Solutions. North Carolina Medical Journal, 81(1), 56-57. https://doi.org/10.18043/ncm.81.1.56

Ifeyinwa Asiodu, RN, PhD, IBCLC is a postdoctoral nurse researcher at USCF. Asiodu writes in popular magazines and academic journals about intersectionality and breastfeeding among African American women. She works with organizations like the Black Infant Health and Black Mamas Matter Alliance to center the experiences of black breastfeeding women.

Rutherford, J. N., Asiodu, I. V., & Liese, K. L. (2019). Reintegrating modern birth practice within ancient birth process: What high cesarean rates ignore about physiologic birth. American Journal of Human Biology, 31(2), e23229. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23229

Black Midwives and Black-Led Organizations You Should Support

See our list here

Racism in Health Care Book List

(Links will direct you to Black-owned bookstores when available)

Bridges, K. (2011). Reproducing race: An ethnography of pregnancy as a site of racialization. Univ of California Press.

Davis, D. A. (2019). Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth (Vol. 7). NYU Press.

Lee, V. (1996). Granny midwives and black women writers: Double-dutched readings. Psychology Press.

Oluo, I. (2019). So you want to talk about race. Seal Press.

Oparah, J. C., & Bonaparte, A. D. (Eds.). (2015). Birthing justice: Black women, pregnancy, and childbirth. Routledge.

Roberts, D. E. (1999). Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Vintage.

Ross, L., GutiŽrrez, E., Gerber, M., & Silliman, J. (2016). Undivided rights: Women of color organizing for reproductive justice. Haymarket Books.

Washington, H. A. (2006). Medical apartheid: The dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present. Doubleday Books.

Anti-Racism Resources

Antiracism Resources for White Folks bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES

Harvard’s Project Implicit https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

RPAC Process https://www.jove.com/video/56220/a-novel-method-for-involving-women-color-at-high-risk-for-preterm

Freedom School https://adawaygroup.com/freedom-school/

Other References

Backes, E. P., & Scrimshaw, S. C. (Eds.). (2020). National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Assessing Health Outcomes by Birth Settings.  Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice. National Academies Press (US). https://doi.org/10.17226/25636

Daw, J. R., Kolenic, G. E., Dalton, V. K., Zivin, K., Winkelman, T., Kozhimannil, K. B., & Admon, L. K. (2020). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Perinatal Insurance Coverage. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 135(4), 917. https://dx.doi.org/10.1097%2FAOG.0000000000003728

Feinstein, L., McWhorter, K. L., Gaston, S. A., Troxel, W. M., Sharkey, K. M., & Jackson, C. L. (2020). Racial/ethnic disparities in sleep duration and sleep disturbances among pregnant and non‐pregnant women in the United States. Journal of Sleep Research, e13000. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13000

Gupta, R., & Froeb, K. (2020). Preterm Birth: Two Startling Trends, One Call to Action. The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing, 34(2), 99-103. https://doi.org/10.1097/jpn.0000000000000469

Jahn, J. L., Chen, J. T., Agénor, M., & Krieger, N. (2020). County-level jail incarceration and preterm birth among non-Hispanic Black and white US women, 1999–2015. Social Science & Medicine, 112856. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.112856

Janevic, T., Zeitlin, J., Egorova, N., Hebert, P. L., Balbierz, A., & Howell, E. A. (2020). Neighborhood Racial And Economic Polarization, Hospital Of Delivery, And Severe Maternal Morbidity: An examination of whether racial and economic neighborhood polarization is associated with severe maternal morbidity rates and whether the delivery hospital partially explains the association. Health Affairs, 39(5), 768-776. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00735

Johnson, J. D., Green, C. A., Vladutiu, C. J., & Manuck, T. A. (2020). Racial Disparities in Prematurity Persist among Women of High Socioeconomic Status. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology MFM, 100104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajogmf.2020.100104

Kim, Y., Vohra-Gupta, S., Margerison, C. E., & Cubbin, C. (2020b). Neighborhood Racial/Ethnic Composition Trajectories and Black-White Differences in Preterm Birth among Women in Texas. Journal of Urban Health, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-019-00411-y

Kim, S., Im, E. O., Liu, J., & Ulrich, C. (2020a). Maternal Age Patterns of Preterm Birth: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Chronic Stress and Race/Ethnicity. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaaa008

Leimert, K. B., & Olson, D. M. (2020). Racial disparities in pregnancy outcomes: genetics, epigenetics, and allostatic load. Current Opinion in Physiology, 13, 155-165.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cophys.2019.12.003

Riggan, K. A., Gilbert, A., & Allyse, M. A. (2020). Acknowledging and Addressing Allostatic Load in Pregnancy Care. Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00757-z

Sartwalle, T. P., Johnston, J. C., & Arda, B. (2017). A half century of electronic fetal monitoring and bioethics: Silence speaks louder than words. Maternal Health, Neonatology, and Perinatology, 3, 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/
s40748-017-0060-2

Shrimali, B. P., Pearl, M., Karasek, D., Reid, C., Abrams, B., & Mujahid, M. (2020). Neighborhood Privilege, Preterm Delivery, and Related Racial/Ethnic Disparities: An Intergenerational Application of the Index of Concentration at the Extremes. American Journal of Epidemiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwz279

Tandy, E. C. (1940). The Health Situation of Negro Mothers and Babies in the United States. A Brief Statement of Health Status, Health Services, and Needs… US Department of labor, Children’s Bureau. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/25922060R