Professor: Why is it that African-American women are three times as likely to die in childbirth? Is it due to lack of access to adequate health care, are there any genetic dispositions, or are there other reasons? I find this statistic disturbing, as I do not enjoy hearing that any woman dies as a result of childbirth. I know it happens, but it is still a sad reality.

Me: To answer your question would take up a giant paragraph of time. Now This Politics actually did a quite amazing video on how African American women are more likely to die in pregnancy. According to the Republican speaking in the video (I am assuming one of the senators), “Black women are 243% more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. 243%.” In the Resident, the episode depicted a black woman that was racially discriminated against by a white doctor and thereby wasn’t a priority. Much of that same incident is what was described in the video. Today, a wealthy black woman, educated with the highest of degrees is still more likely to die than a poor white woman with a high school diploma. While there are several stats on the reduces access to health care, education, and genetics, even if all of that was controlled the racial discrepancy is far too high. But if we take race completely out of the picture and just look at women in general, women are more likely to die of childbirth in the United States than any other country in the world. In the U.K. a male partner of a pregnant woman is more likely to die than she is (Now This Politics). In the U.K. every time a woman dies during childbirth a committee is put together to find out what happened and how to prevent it. In America on the other hand, maternal mortality has increased by over 50% since 2000. That’s about 700 deaths per year. At least 350 or 60% of the deaths are actually preventable. The problem becomes that healthcare has simply shifted away from mothers. On top of that, the racial disparity amongst women who are mothers is alarmingly high. As a nursing student, progressing into the healthcare field, it is first my duty to bring these stats to light as many people are unaware, and second to make the change to make things better. I implore all nursing students that may be in this class to read and be aware of such statistics going into the medical field and to be the change we want to see.

Reference from Now This Politics (the video is on facebook and can be looked up)

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/226824761370816/?v=226824761370816 (Links to an external site.)

https://www.facebook.com/ATTNVideo/videos/1480949551940499/?v=1480949551940499

Professor: This is quite an eye-opening set of facts, and it is rather disturbing to see this. I would hope that we have researchers looking into this so we can start saving more lives. Thank you very much for sharing this information with the rest of us. I do appreciate it!

After almost week of dedicated reading time, I’ve finished Rose In Chains by Julie Soto for the first time and it’s safe to say that I was fully immersed from Chapter One onwards…feeling blissfully satisfied by the story so far, given its only book 1 of the Evermore trilogy, I just had to get into creative mode to recreate Briony & Toven from the front cover to the best of my ability.

The word, satisfy, conjures up all kinds of images in my mind. The most recent was on Mother’s Day. Satisfy means to fulfill, gratify, or meet someone’s expectations, or needs. I could check the box in front of each one of those words because I was over-the-top satisfied. A mom with her family around her; more food offered than I could have ever eaten; expressions of love that made my heart full.…