“A Letter to the Editor
I read the title, “Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis” and the first thought that crossed my mind was: “Someone needs to tell the truth…” I’ve had numerous articles come across my desk that circled around the statistics, the reasoning and search for rationale tends to prod at the “mystery” behind the disparity. It is agonizing. The subtitle: “The answer to the disparity in death rates has everything to do with the lived experience of being a black woman in America” gave me chills of anticipation. I dove head first into the story of Simone Landrum. I felt as though I knew her. The excitement about her baby, the stress, the abuse, it all came flooding back to my remembrance. As a Black mother who suffered abuse, rape, and maltreatment by health care professionals when I almost lost my son, it gave me hope that along with the number of deaths, someone was acknowledging the lives being affected. As I read more of her story, the details brought me to tears, and then I was jolted.
“I’m trying not to be worried, but sometimes. …” Landrum said haltingly, looking down at the table as her hair, tipped orange at the ends, brushed her shoulders. “I feel like my heart is so anxious.”
Did I read that right? Is she spilling her broken heart out for the world, and the focus shifts to the color of her hair? Had it been blonde, would it be worth mentioning? What was I to draw from this? My heart sank. I read on, and amidst all of the overwhelming research and statistics, expert accounts and heart-wrenching detail was this:
“Landrum had lost the baby weight and looked strong and healthy in an oversize T-shirt and leggings, wearing her hair in pink braids that hung down her back.”
I wondered if she’d been made aware that her choice in hair color and clothing would be included in the story of her birth trauma.Reading that she’d lost her baby weight and the statement that sheappearedstrong and healthy made me cringe. Like so many mothers who share her story, her “strength” has been built from necessity. She appears strong because she’s got no other recourse. Strong is all you have in survival mode. Her health is not limited to her physicality, as much of this article points out, she’s been through multiple traumatic situations, and she, herself describes her agony.
“I was just so tired,” she says. “I felt like giving up.” Then she pictured the faces of her two young sons. “I thought, who’s going to take care of them if I’m gone?” That’s the last thing she recalls clearly. When she became more alert sometime later, a nurse told her that she had almost bled to death and had required a half dozen units of transfused blood and platelets to survive. “The nurse told me: ‘You know, you been sick. You are very lucky to be alive,’ ” Landrum remembers. “She said it more than once.” “I know I was still sedated, but as I held her, I kept looking at her, thinking, Why doesn’t she wake up? I tried to feel love, but after a while I got more and more angry. I thought, Why is God doing this to me?” The hardest part was going to pick up her sons empty-handed and telling them that their sister had died. “I felt like I failed them,” Landrum says, choking up. “I felt like someone had taken something from me, but also from them.”
Landrum’s mention of how the death of her daughter continues to affect her is a cry for help.
“I’m not going to lie; though I had a lot going on, I wanted to give my boys back the sister they had lost, ” Landrum said, looking down at her lap. “They don’t forget. Every night they always say their prayers, like: ‘Goodnight, Harmony. Goodnight, God. We love you, sister.’ ” She paused and took a breath. “But I was also afraid, because of what happened to me before.”
In mourning for her daughter and out of concern for the emotional state of her sons, she expressed that she felt responsible to “give them back the sister they lost.” With little mention of her own pain, her focus is that she “failed” her children. This mother deserves to be supported emotionally as well as physically. Having almost lost her own life, the anxiety she suffers puts her at risk for postpartum depression. Her outward appearance, her weight loss and the perceived “strength” and “health” don’t account for the under current of pain she lives with constantly. As her doula, Giwa mentioned:
“Her life is hectic; she’s at home with three children. Luckily she’s fine, but at minimum someone should’ve called to check on her.”
This statement is bone chilling. This woman, having suffered abuse, rape, the death of her daughter, having relocated, caring for three children on her own having almost died in one labor, given the wrong medications and being maltreated in the next labor, has survived, and she’s “fine.”
No.
I revisited the statistics and the “why” behind them.
“Black infants in America are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants — 11.3 per 1,000 black babies, compared with 4.9 per 1,000 white babies, according to the most recent government data — a racial disparity that is actually wider than in 1850, 15 years before the end of slavery, when most black women were considered chattel. In one year, that racial gap adds up to more than 4,000 lost black babies. Education and income offer little protection. In fact, a black woman with an advanced degree is more likely to lose her baby than a white woman with less than an eighth-grade education.”
The last statements in this article have an “all is well” tone, giving the impression of a warm happy ending. Infant mortality is defined as the death of an infant within or before their first year of life. The chest that Kingston rests his newborn head on carries the weight of all that she’s gone through, a chest with donated blood from transfusions to save her life, and her own doctor hasn't called her? In the article, you mention that her doula, her wonderful, and seemingly only support and advocate, is strained as well:
“For Giwa’s work with Landrum, from October to February, she earned just $600. Like the other Birthmark doulas, Giwa can’t make ends meet just doing doula work; she is employed as a lactation consultant…”
So even the one support person she has, is stressed.
“Kingston stirred when he heard his mother’s voice. He lifted his head briefly and looked into Landrum’s face. Their eyes met, his still slightly crossed with new-baby nearsightedness. Landrum paused long enough to stroke his head and kiss his damp cheek. The baby sighed. Then he burrowed his head back into the warmth and safety of his mother’s chest.”
I was left wondering how much longer Giwa would be able to meet with Simone, if her provider was held accountable for her birth and follow up insufficiency and maltreatment, if she knows where to go for behavioral health support, and if she had resources for her daily needs, as her lack of furniture was mentioned.
I didn’t want her to remain a statistic, after she’d so graciously allowed the world into the absolute most intimate details of her life, and her baby, Harmony’s death. I want to know that her outward appearance of health to others won’t prevent her from receiving the care that she and her children deserve. It is noble to discuss the difficult topic of systemic racism and toxic stress that is killing our black mothers and infants, the next step is to ask the mothers what they need, where it hurts, and provide information on solutions. Don’t view us as “others” tell us where our advocates are, and give us steps to take to advocate for ourselves. We’re not angry uneducated women with exotic hair on the other side of town, we’re your sisters, daughters, wives, mothers, and we face “despair-ity.” Use your platform accordingly.