Stop saying “health disparities” when it’s really obstetric racism
Doula and midwifery student Kaila Matthews of WhatTheDoula, LLC in Memphis, Tennessee is on a mission to bring compassion and education to black mothers and all her clients during birth and the postpartum period.
She loves preparing her families for the journey ahead, arming them with information so that they can make informed decisions and feel confident enough to ask questions if they have them.
Though she didn’t know it then, Kaila’s journey to becoming a doula started when she herself had an encouraging doula during her first birth in Augusta, Georgia. Her doula provided evidence based information and reminded her that this was her birth, her body, and that she had choices. When she went to the hospital in labor, her provider wanted to perform a C-section without providing a clear reason why.
“He was ready to cut me the minute he saw me.”
Kaila’s doula helped her find her voice, ask questions, and insist that her husband film the birth, which was very important to her.
A few years later when she felt that her teaching job plus motherhood was too much to handle together, her therapist asked her what would bring her joy. “What could you wake up every day and do, and enjoy? Something that wouldn’t feel like work.” Kaila thought for a minute about how she was already spending a lot of time guiding her sorority sisters through birth, baby wearing, breastfeeding, and parenting.
“I just kind of blurted it out. I could be a doula. And then I was like.. I COULD BE A DOULA! I had one of those. That wouldn’t feel like work.”
Now Kaila not only offers birth and postpartum support for families in the Memphis area, but also breastfeeding education, placenta encapsulation, yoga, and herbal remedies. She’s studying to become a midwife so she can take care of women’s health, too. As a black doula, she knows how important culturally competent care is for families.
“It’s not just about looking like the community, it’s living in the community too and understanding what you’re dealing with and what our resources and our gaps and barriers and obstacles are.”
The statistics for black and brown birthing people are terrible. In Tennessee black people are 69% more likely to die than white people. It’s heartbreaking and maddening and dire. I asked Kaila, “Why? What can we do?” Here at the Global Doula Project we are committed to working for birth equity and lessening the health disparities worldwide. It’s why we are here.
Here’s her powerful response.
“We’re gonna stop calling these things disparities because they’re not disparities. It’s obstetric violence and obstetric racism that are the problems for maternal health care and black maternal health care specifically. They are disguised as something else so [the racism] is not addressed and called a spade a spade. A lot of the times you think the way you’re treated is how you should be treated until you know that it’s not. Until someone exposes it and makes you aware that people hadn’t been asking your consent to touch your body, go into your body, test your body, put you through certain things that you didn’t even have to go through but you did because choices weren’t presented to you.”
If we’re gonna make it go away we have to call it what it is. It’s racism. And we have to fight it. Kaila says the most powerful thing black mothers can do is start to take responsibility for their health and educate themselves about their own bodies. If a provider says something that doesn’t make sense, ask for clarification. Speak up, and be an advocate for yourself!
I told Kaila that it’s hard to speak up when you’re not used to being heard. That’s why Kaila’s role and the role of all doulas is so powerful. Doulas listen, and by listening, they allow mothers to experience what it feels like to be heard. If at least one person listens to you, it’s easier to speak up. Because you feel like your voice matters.
Thank you, Kaila, for empowering your clients to speak up and encouraging them to take charge of their health and birth and postpartum journeys. One family at a time, you are fighting against systemic racism and fighting for mothers and babies. By arming them with resources, information, and compassion, you are helping parents to find their voices, and use them. That confidence will stick with them throughout their lives, and they’ll show their kids how to speak up, too.
