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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBlack Mothers Keep Dying After Giving Birth. Shalon Irving's Story Explains Why
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/07/568948782/black-mothers-keep-dying-after-giving-birth-shalon-irvings-story-explains-whyWanda Irving holds her granddaughter, Soleil, in front of a portrait of Soleil's mother, Shalon, at her home in Sandy Springs, Ga. Wanda is raising Soleil since Shalon died of complications due to hypertension a few weeks after giving birth.
On a melancholy Saturday this past February, Shalon Irving's "village" the friends and family she had assembled to support her as a single mother gathered at a funeral home in a prosperous black neighborhood in southwest Atlanta to say goodbye.
The afternoon light was gray but bright, flooding through tall, arched windows and pouring past white columns, illuminating the flag that covered her casket. Sprays of callas and roses dotted the room like giant corsages, flanking photos from happier times: Shalon in a slinky maternity dress, sprawled across her couch with her puppy; Shalon, sleepy-eyed and cradling the tiny head of her newborn daughter, Soleil. In one portrait, Shalon wore a vibrant smile and the crisp uniform of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, where she had been a lieutenant commander. Many of the mourners were similarly attired. Shalon's father, Samuel, surveyed the rows of somber faces from the lectern. "I've never been in a room with so many doctors," he marveled. "... I've never seen so many Ph.D.s."
At 36, Shalon had been part of their elite ranks an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pre-eminent public health institution in the U.S. There she had focused on trying to understand how structural inequality, trauma and violence made people sick. "She wanted to expose how people's limited health options were leading to poor health outcomes," said Rashid Njai, her mentor at the agency. "To kind of uncover and undo the victim-blaming that sometimes happens where it's like, 'Poor people don't care about their health.' " Her Twitter bio declared: "I see inequity wherever it exists, call it by name, and work to eliminate it."
CBHagman
(16,984 posts)Dr. Irving's story is so incredibly sad, and what would truly honor her legacy would be to wage war on the health inequities that bring about such tragedy.
Maternal death rates in Texas, for instance, have been going up, and invariably are the worst among women who are African-American and Hispanic. Elected officials are starting to pay attention to that, but what will it take for them to do something about it?
volstork
(5,401 posts)I think this is what the GOP wants-- to kill off these women so they don't continue to "breed."
Maraya1969
(22,482 posts). According to the CDC, black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest of all racial disparities in women's health. Put another way, a black woman is 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71 percent more likely to perish from cervical cancer, but 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes
ancianita
(36,060 posts)spanone
(135,841 posts)oasis
(49,388 posts)Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)mountain grammy
(26,622 posts)Very important story.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)ck4829
(35,077 posts)Don't expect a response from our fake government on this.
K&R.