Introduction
This literature review’s purpose was to answer the question: Why do African American Women have health disparities in relation to birth outcomes? The literature review’s that incorporated this question, and the specific key terms opened up the discussion of chronic stress and racism. Being black and pregnant subsequently gave women two strikes against them from the begin.
African American women for years have had the most negative birth outcomes compared to their counterparts. They have succumbed to preterm labor, low birth weight, and high infant mortality. Because of the question, what are the reasons for this? It has been determined that stress, racial discrimination and even the location of your residence can give an African American woman an adverse birth outcome no matter their socioeconomic status.
In order to fill in the gap, the community needs to become aware of how racism throughout a minorities life can cause chronic stress and in return affect their pregnancy in a negative way. African American Women can become more aware of the reasoning behind their preterm births and low birth weight infants. They should realize this is a generational aspect that can not be avoided as long as racism impacts them and their children personally.
Discussion
It was discovered that adverse birth outcomes go hand in hand with racism, stress and the simple fact of just being born a minority in this country in particular. This is a multi generational phenomenon that can not be avoided regrettably, as long as your offspring are born in the United States.
Conclusion
Unfortunately there are people in the world that do not believe that there is racism in this country anymore. They believe that all black individuals get the same fair outcomes as their counterparts. As it is seen here, this is not true. It doesn’t matter if the black woman makes the same six figures as her counterpart, she will still succumb to and adverse birth outcome, whether it be a genetic factor or not. She could go to all the best doctors and still be behind the curve because of psychosocial stress due to racism beginning from childhood.
