Woman’s Hour today

Poverty does have a strong impact on maternal mortality rates, both because of the physical and mental tear and wear it causes to the women experiencing it and because the health services may treat poorer patients differently.

Ideally, the studies of black maternal mortality deaths are done while also addressing income differences, language differences etc. so that we can see to what extent the problem can be ameliorated by altering health care services and to what extent we need to tackle the impact of poverty and the effect of race/racism on becoming/staying poor.

I know, however, from some US data that African-American women whose roots are in certain areas of Africa have a higher risk of hypertension during pregnancy, and this is not often understood by health care providers and affects African-American women of all income classes. Something like this can be changed by better training of the providers, and providing translators and culture-appropriate care is also important.

But I suspect that poverty still is the largest factor here.

fromorbit · Yesterday 09:52

Beowulfa · Yesterday 09:14

White slave owners on US plantations deliberately used dehumanising language about their slaves, as they considered them livestock. I find it really concerning that people can't see the parallels here.

Exactly. Racism 2,0 like Sexism 2.0 is the same stuff dressed up

However this conversation is questionable in certain ways. Look at the stats in more detail. British African women have higher morality rates than British Caribbean women. Which is weird if it is just about skin colour.

This BIGGEST cause of maternal mortality is poverty it seems. If we got more money for all poor women of whatever ethnicity things would get better. The reason black women having bad outcomes is they are more likely to be poor.

It is weird the conversation has got sidetracked onto race when the real issue is

1 - our society doesn't like mothers

2 - doesn't support poor mothers enough.

This I think is because feeling guilty about race is way more acceptable than the deeper reality of NHS failings and poverty.

Take a look at the full reports. Do not get distracted by the media hype.

https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk/reports

Thank you. I looked at the screenshot of the report you linked, and I see what you mean about poverty being the greatest driving force, not just being black.

But it seems likely there might be other factors too related to Doctors and midwives perhaps not communicating effectively with Africans, the worst affected, who in their turn may feel diffident and shy about questioning a doctor if they have been brought up with cultural mores meaning this could seem wrong.

Fair enough!
I have repeated conversations with a friend that go, 'Transwomen, remind me, does that mean the men who think they are women or the women who think they are men?' so I never assume a shared vocabulary on these things any more.

By trans women, do you mean 'women who have transitioned'? Because precisely zero transwomen have ever become pregnant or given birth.

I meant trans men, obviously.

When I go into hospital, not for maternity of course, many of the nurses are black, and when they give me their names, it seems likely they are African. Is it different in maternity than opthalmology? Seems odd.

I'm hypothesising, and not very well, but say all the black women who were treated badly during pregnancy and birth were trans women - it would be important to know that

By trans women, do you mean 'women who have transitioned'? Because precisely zero transwomen have ever become pregnant or given birth.

Completely agree. It’s shocking to read “black birthing bodies”.

Yes dehumanising

The end point of Liberalism/Liberal feminism is sex denial and disembodiment -especially when it comes to women.

When you suggest someone's humanity has nothing to do with the body that is when the market steps in and starts to commodify that body - as if it just a " meat suit" ( Mary Harrington). Self commodification.

But we can still say men, right?

End racial disparities in maternal deaths - MPs - BBC News Recent BBC article. I agree that poverty is involved but we must not brush aside the uncomfortable truth that racism is present, too.

How has women morphed into birthing people morphed into birthing bodies? How can we listen to a body? Is it a dead body, or alive? Is it actually perhaps a woman? Just awful, this makes me sick. Let's listen to women giving birth.

So this is a good example of why language is important.
I'm hypothesising, and not very well, but say all the black women who were treated badly during pregnancy and birth were trans women - it would be important to know that, because that might contribute to the poor experience. It might be due to the drugs they take, or any surgery they've had, for instance.
I'm pretty sure that isn't the reason in this case (before everyone piles in to tell me! 😁), but in another case of discrimination it might be.

Exactly. Racism 2,0 like Sexism 2.0 is the same stuff dressed up.

However this conversation is questionable in certain ways. Look at the stats in more detail. British African women have higher morality rates than British Caribbean women. Which is weird if it is just about skin colour.

This BIGGEST cause of maternal mortality is poverty it seems. If we got more money for all poor women of whatever ethnicity things would get better. The reason black women having bad outcomes is they are more likely to be poor.

It is weird the conversation has got sidetracked onto race when the real issue is

1 - our society doesn't like mothers

2 - doesn't support poor mothers enough.

This I think is because feeling guilty about race is way more acceptable than the deeper reality of NHS failings and poverty.

Take a look at the full reports. Do not get distracted by the media hype.

https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk/reports

White slave owners on US plantations deliberately used dehumanising language about their slaves, as they considered them livestock. I find it really concerning that people can't see the parallels here.

https://medium.com/@cuppajoey/vulva-people-and-defining-people-by-their-genitalia-aadf66a522b8

Is 'vulva people' a real one? FFS! What is happening? They're all terrible but especially that one.

'Birthing bodies'!?!

'Birthing people' is bad enough; 'bodies' is what you'd expect them to come up with if they were deliberately trying to be offensive.

I heard this. It brought me up short. I thought it was a supremely offensive and counterproductive way of referring to women in the context of rights to good maternity care.

Did the programme come to a conclusion about how to fix this? Concrete policies proposed?

https://twitter.com/353MediaGroup/status/1646547423429312515

"We must listen to black birthing bodies" How dehumanising can you get? I remember a US university (Harvard, I think) using that exact language and they got extremely angry feedback. Nothing seems to have been learned from that.

If you won't name the problem how can you fix it?

Reports | MBRRACE-UK | NPEU (ox.ac.uk) 2022 MBRRACE report link here, the layperson's summary is a good explainer.

I know recent research has been published, which I think has kickstarted the conversation around health inequalities again.

But the conversation peters out quickly and each year we wring our hands at the news that 4 times as many Black women and 2 times as many Asian women die in pregnancy compared to white women in the UK, and congratulate ourselves that as it was previously 5 times for Black women, whoo hoo, and is now only 4, yeah, that's got be worth some hi fives. /sarcasm

There's surely not people honestly still using 'birthing people'?!

Well, you have to say 'birthing people' now. Also 'menstruating people' and 'people undergoing menopause'. And 'chest feeders' and 'vulva people.'

That's because we are now inclusive of all who wish to define womanhood as having to do with loving pink and makeup and high heels so that they can run into it our out of it.

Yes anti women language not challenged at all! I switched over to Times radio which was also talking nonsense so I listened to a history podcast instead.