Overview

Battling Over Birth: Black Women and the Maternal Health Care Crisis reveals hard truths--powerful findings on the role of racism, coercion, inadequate prenatal care, the pressures undermining breastfeeding, and the lack of access to alternatives to a broken maternal health-care system as key threads of black women's birth experiences. Battling Over Birth, a new human rights report from Black Women Birthing Justice, shares stories from over 100 women who recently gave birth in California. The report reveals the culture of fear and coercion that has transformed birth into a battleground, a deep lack of trust of our hospitals, and a broken maternal healthcare system that fails too many black women. The report shakes up our understanding of where state violence happens, and who it happens to; putting the human rights spotlight onto a system that is often unaccountable to black communities. Battling Over Birth also provides solutions. It makes a series of recommendations, including community accountability boards to hold hospitals accountable; increased access to midwifery and doula-care; recruitment and training of more health-care professionals of color; culturally-competent, empowering prenatal and postpartum care; greater access to home birth and birth centers; and a sharp reduction in the use of C-sections.

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Linda Jones is a birth and postpartum doula and mother of two, grandmother of four, and great-grandmother of four, who lives in Oakland, California. She founded and owned Waddle and Swaddle Baby Boutique and Resource Center in Berkeley, California, and has been a part of the natural birth advocacy community in the Bay Area for over three decades. She is one of the cofounders of Black Women Birthing Justice and was one of the founders of a Doula collective (Roots of Labor Birth Collective). Linda is a Community Advisory Board member for UCSF Preterm Birth Initiative and is executive director and on the Executive Committee for Mothers for Mothers Postpartum Justice Project. Julia Chinyere Oparah (""Chinyere"") is a social justice educator, activist scholar, and transformational leader. She's provost and vice president of academic affairs at the University of San Francisco and professor emerita of ethnic studies at Mills College. Chinyere is cofounder of Black Women Birthing Justice. Deanna Anthony is a classically trained singer, actress, and audiobook narrator. A former beauty queen, she has performed in over fifty regional and international theaters. When not working, she enjoys quilting and sewing, reading romance, and enjoying home-cooked meals and baked treats. Deanna Anthony is a classically trained singer, actress, and audiobook narrator. A former beauty queen, she has performed in over fifty regional and international theaters. When not working, she enjoys quilting and sewing, reading romance, and enjoying home-cooked meals and baked treats.

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