This is Black Maternal Health Week. Coincidentally, it was also Beyonce’s official return to performing.
And what I love about when Coachella (excuse me, Beychella) happened, is that while we’re all using Black Maternal Health Week to discuss black maternal death, what is Queen Bey doing? Thriving and being her amazing awe-inspiring self.
In Beyonce, we have a picture of a woman who we know has struggled with fertility issues. She’s shared with us that she’s had a miscarriage. We know that according to the doctors she’s reached what we call advanced maternal age. We know that she’s about a year out from having had twins.
And THIS is her debut after she comes back from maternity leave.
I think the thing that it reminds me of on the one hand is that we absolutely must keep black women alive. That is absolutely critical. We have to make sure that black mothers make it out of pregnancy, their delivery rooms and their postpartum periods. Heaven only knows what we’re losing to the horrors of black maternal mortality.
But I am so thankful that as a doula I know first hand that most black women and their babies do actually make it. Thank God for that, this Black Maternal Health Week.
What I’m concerned about, as the owner of DC Metro Maternity, and someone who goes into people’s homes and their birth rooms, is what we’re doing (or not doing) for the mothers who are here.
I think we have to raise the bar on black maternal health.
Y’all, we have to get beyond the idea that we should be telling expectant mothers that we can help them make it out alive. We have to do more than say that they and their babies are going to be okay at the end of this.
Black women need more than that! We see what happens when black women have support, and when mothers have everything they need.
Everybody is not gonna be Beyonce. Y’all don’t want to see the outtakes of me trying to do the choreography to Beychella. Michelle Obama doesn’t write me love notes, and that’s fine.
But what I want for everyone who’s having a baby, but especially black women, is that you honestly believe that you can come back after having a baby at the very top of your game.
There is no one better at what she does than Beyonce, and she is a mother in her mid-thirties, of three kids.
You can have your own Beychella. And I can’t wait to see what that would be.
So instead of just white-knuckling it, and holding on for dear life when we’re about to have a baby, I want the message that we hear to be more than just “You’re gonna be alive.”
I want it to be that you can thrive. I want it to clear that your life is not over, in fact the best is yet to come.
We would be absolutely thrilled to help you, if you need support. And yes, of course we can listen to Beyonce.
Take a look at our Attain course designed specifically for pregnant black women!
