blackmama

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Being a Black woman and giving birth. What to
know?
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• Pregnancy-related deaths occur even up to a year
  postpartum with a prevalence of 33 percent, and
  at 36 percent at delivery or in the week after.
  But there is great news, 60 percent of those
  deaths are preventable. Here is what you need to
  know during labor, delivery and the post-partum
  period.

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Seek community support

• Youve had a safe delivery, baby/babies is/are
  healthy and doing great, you still need to be
  cautious though. Your body is still healing
  itself, you may be perturbed by the kind of
  mental and emotional toil a new baby/babies
  brings on. Dont despair.

This is the time to lean on the community around
you, be they family, friends, church folk,
neighbors, let them know they are welcome to
help. In the African culture, the child belongs
to the community and is nurtured by the
community, which cultivates a healthy experience
for the mother and child.
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Trust your intuition and speak up if something
seems off
At the point of your delivery, you might want to
have established some rapport with your delivery
attendant. Hopefully, you had shopped around for
the best fit of a healthcare facility and
interviewed potential providers, and have already
chosen the practice suited to your needs
cesarean birth, normal birth, maybe you dont
want an episiotomy . Ensure you discuss all your
options and preferences with your birth attendant
prior to the delivery.
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Visit a health facility for your postpartum
checkups

• Ensure that the comprehensive postpartum visit
  includes a full assessment of physical, social,
  and psychological well-being mood and emotional
  well-being infant care and feeding sexuality,
  contraception, and birth spacing sleep and
  fatigue physical recovery from birth chronic
  disease management and health maintenance.

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• blackmama.co/your-body/being-a-black-woman-and-giv
  ing-birth/