{"id":1386630,"date":"2023-12-12T06:55:38","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T06:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=307560"},"modified":"2023-12-12T06:55:38","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T06:55:38","slug":"reimagining-birthing-in-the-south-bronx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/12\/12\/reimagining-birthing-in-the-south-bronx\/","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
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Sculpture by Edgar Degas<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cWomen are the gods of the universe because we are the only ones that can reproduce life and nurture a seed inside our body for nine months and develop bones and the heart and the blood system and liver and all these things that enable a human being to be alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Zakiyyah Madyun, African American healer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jennifer Dohrn, a midwife and a professor of nursing at Columbia University who works with public health workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, comes at the subject of this book from her own professional experience and the perspective of a longtime political activist who has devoted much of her life over the last several decades to the empowerment of the women of the world. Especially women of color who give birth to children everyday of the year and perhaps every hour of the day around the clock. In the acknowledgements, Jennifer thanks her sister, Bernardine, her brother-inlaw, Bill Ayers, and her three children\u2014Amilcar, Haydee and Atari\u2014as well as her late husband, Haywood Burns, a lawyer who represented Angela Davis and prisoners after the rebellion at Attica,\u00a0\u00a0and who died in an automobile accident in South Africa in 1996. Yes, it takes a village, a global village.<\/p>\n

No anti-racist, anti-imperialist, feminist or working class organization in the US made birthing a major issue in the era of the war in Vietnam. None I know of. They might have. After all, what\u2019s more important than birth and birthing\u2014it\u2019s essential labor\u2014 and what\u2019s more of a fundamental right than the right to the health and well-being of mothers and children? Breathing and pushing are necessary, as the title to Dohrn\u2019s book makes clear, but sometimes pushing and exercising patience come first. Pushing for social change is also primary for Jennifer Dohrn.<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise to readers to learn in\u00a0Mothers, Midwives and inining Birthing in the South Bronx<\/em>\u00a0that the US is \u201cthe only high-income country with a rising maternal mortality rate,\u201d that the rate is highest in the Non-Hispanic Black population, and specifically where you\u2019d expect to find it, in Mississippi, Louisiana and neighboring states. In 2020, 20,000 infants died in the US. That\u2019s way more than died in Norway, Sweden and Iceland, countries that apparently care more about women, children and about birthing than the US.<\/p>\n

Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing<\/em>\u00a0belongs to the Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Interviews with some of the\u00a0\u00a0women who gave birth to children at the revolutionary\u00a0Childbearing Center of Morris Heights in the South Bronx\u00a0are at the heart of this volume. It would have been helpful to know the questions they were asked and when the interviews took place. The women tell stories of hope, resilience and camaraderie. Far ranging, the books touches on subjects such as\u00a0obstetrics, gynecology, the pandemic, Cuban music and the role of\u00a0comadronas\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0in Latino cultures and\u00a0doulas<\/em>\u00a0where there are no trained midwives.<\/p>\n

But why a book about birthing, midwives and children that focuses on the South Bronx, a New York City neighborhood notorious for crime, violence and street drugs?\u00a0\u00a0(Yes, it\u2019s also the birthplace of hip-hop). Jennifer Dohrn spent much of her time at the\u00a0Childbearing Center of Morris Heights in the South Bronx, which served for years as a vital resource, and the source of essential services for thousands of women. Alas, the Center is now closed, and so Dohrn\u2019s book provides a history of a singular place that made a qualitative difference in the lives of women, some of whom lost sons and lovers to guns and bullets.<\/p>\n

Most of the interviewed women come from poor, Black and brown communities, and also many of them come from the Caribbean and from nations in Africa where female genital mutilation is a centuries-old practice that continues to this day.<\/p>\n

My favorite quotation is from Zakiyyah Madyun, an African American healer, who says, that birthing \u201cwas like a train passing through me.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Poverty has long thrived in The Bronx, where the crime rate is far higher then the crime rate in the rest of New York, and higher than the national median. The Bronx is home to the poorest congressional district in the US, New York\u2019s 17th<\/sup>. You’d be right to call it Third World. But as Dohrn shows, it\u2019s more than an underdeveloped borough. Families, communities, and midwives in The Bronx have nurtured women who were pregnant, women in labor and women with new-born infants.<\/p>\n

Dohrn contributed several chapters to\u00a0Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx<\/em>\u00a0on crucial topics, including racism, the transformation of legacies, and the need to\u00a0<\/em>bring about better birthing practices and create safer environments for motherhood.<\/p>\n

Annette Mwansa Nkowane, a nurse and midwife, based in Lusaka, Zambia, provided the forward in which she wrote, \u201cwell-trained and supported midwives can potentially provide 90 percent of all essential sexual, reproductive, maternal, and newborn health services.\u201d Nkowane added that the lesson learned in the Bronx can \u201ccontribute to accelerated reduction of maternal and newborn mortality rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Women in the US are increasingly turning to midwives. But with over 94.8 percent of births taking place in hospitals, only 8.7 percent are attended by midwives.<\/p>\n

Many of the women who were interviewed for this book were initially leery of midwives and the Childbearing Center and were inclined to go to a hospital and seek a doctor. They had to overcome doubts and suspicions; all of them were pleasantly surprised by the care and the love they received from women they regarded as \u201cgirlfriends.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rosie Hernandez, who was born in The Bronx, says, \u201cFrom my mother and grandma, I learned birth was natural, you did it amongst women, you did it with your support group, and you breastfed your baby, right? To me that\u2019s what birth is. At hospitals it\u2019s information about you, but away from you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Lizette Aguilar, who calls herself half Puerto Rican and half Afro-Peruvian, says that she felt like a number at the hospital where she sought help. \u201dI didn\u2019t feel respected, either; I might have been viewed as uneducated because I was a woman of color.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zakiyyah Madyun adds that \u201cwomen are the gods of the universe because we are the only ones that can reproduce life and nurture a seed inside our body for nine months and develop bones and the heart and the blood system and liver and all these things that enable a human being to be alive.\u201d The names Rosa Martinez, Lizette Aguilar and Zakiyyah Madyun belong to the world and reflect the diversity in Dohrn\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

Dana Keys, from Georgia, says, \u201cGrowing up in the South, I didn\u2019t think anything about birthing because for some reason, sex and where babies came from wasn\u2019t spoken about.\u201d Her church didn\u2019t believe in birth control and so she \u201cstarted having babies almost right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the women whose voices echo across the pages of this book speak frankly and without shame or embarrassment about their bodies and themselves. They talk candidly about breastfeeding, menstruating, waters breaking, conception, dilating, contractions, morning sickness, C-sections,\u00a0\u00a0miscarriages, latching on, labor, postpartum depression, leaking and more.<\/p>\n

Photos enhance the text; the index makes it relatively easy to find topics such as the World Health Organization, Midwifery (which is derived from the Middle English term \u201cmidwif,\u201d meaning with woman), and the names of scholars and activists like bell hooks who provide food for thought with comments such as \u201cUntil the legacy of remembered and reenacted trauma is taken seriously black America cannot heal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Mothers, Midwives and Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx: Breathe, Now Push\u00a0<\/em>is a lively, energizing and healing\u00a0<\/em>text meant for mothers, daughters, aunts and sisters, and for the guys\u2014 fathers, brothers, uncles and husbands\u2014 who have stood by their family members, wives and lovers, held their babies in their arms and who have aimed to reimagine fatherhood.<\/p>\n

Too bad the Panthers didn\u2019t add an 11th point to their ten-point program. They might have proclaimed, \u201cWe want health care that prioritizes people not profits and that provides the best medical practices for mothers and children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWomen are the gods of the universe because we are the only ones that can reproduce life and nurture a seed inside our body for nine months and develop bones and the heart and the blood system and liver and all these things that enable a human being to be alive.\u201d \u2013 Zakiyyah Madyun, African More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Reimagining Birthing in the South Bronx<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1386630"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1386631,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1386630\/revisions\/1386631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1386630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1386630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1386630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}