The Birth of the Mother Mortality Project.
By: Dr. Kenya Mitchell
Tags: Indigenous Women, Motherhood, Birth, Black Motherhood, Pregnancy

Photo by Mustafa Omar on Unsplash

In our society, through literature and visual media, we are inundated with stories of women who die during or immediately after childbirth, from the fairy tale of Snow White to the modern-day story of Princess Amidala. Because these stories are often seen in entertainment, the concept of mother mortality becomes a fictional trope to viewers, something that seems to happen in an imagined land that is completely different from our modern world that is filled with technology that can monitor and measure our every move.

Unfortunately, this assumption is misguided. For all of our collective technological progress, very little of that technology has been used to improve mother mortality rates in North America. According to the OECD, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rates out of all developed countries. This fact is acutely true for pregnant women from underrepresented backgrounds. The CDC reports pregnancy-related deaths for Indigenous and Black women are four to five times higher than it is for white women. The majority of these deaths are preventable. However, maternal mortality rates have been increasing since 2000. Current research indicates many of these deaths are the direct result of discrimination against diverse and

I found out these truisms, unfortunately, through lived experience. In my article, I Almost Died From Preeclampsia. I wasn’t tested because I am Black, I recounted the trauma of being subjected to the subconscious bigotry of health care professionals that resulted from their presumption that I was healthy based on my appearance, not scientific testing. Almost immediately, women from all walks of life came forward, sharing their stories of obstetric abuse with me. At the urging of a good friend and ally, Whitney Huntington, I set out with a team of women to record some of these stories and stories of individuals who are on the front lines of fighting this crisis. Thanks to Demeter Press, the Mother Mortality Project was born.

In addition to documenting these important stories co-editor, Emily Pickard and I are working diligently to compile resources and information for vulnerable, pregnant North American women on our website and through our social media handles. Our work is even more urgent than before given Indigenous, Black, Brown, and impoverished pregnant women live at the intersection of high Covid-19 and pregnancy-related death rates. We encourage you to reach out if you have knowledge of a valuable resource or would like to submit an article for publication. This crisis will take a community effort to solve, so we welcome your contributions, ideas, and written submissions.

I come to this work as a researcher and author who challenges the public’s expectations of African American authors by challenging pre-established writing genres. Instead of treating this as a typical social science project, I approach this work as an opportunity to create a platform where community members from varying platforms can share their struggles with the medical system or how they have stepped up to the plate to challenge the status quo to make better outcomes for vulnerable parents.