Inequity Embodied

This chapter examines African American women’s disproportionate risk of low birth weight, preterm delivery, and infant and maternal mortality, and the ways in which race, gender, and class oppression create a unique matrix of stress burden that increases allostatic load (i.e., weathering or wear and tear on the body), thereby increasing risk for these adverse pregnancy-related outcomes. The chapter describes how traditional risk factors, such as health behavior, medical risk, and lower socioeconomic status, do not account for racial disparities in childbearing health, and it utilizes a stress paradigm for explaining how the intersectional burden of race, gender, and class inequity can affect African American pregnancy women. The chapter concludes by noting several mobilization efforts that are underway to eliminate health disparities in adverse birth outcomes by promoting health equity that is fair and just opportunities to be healthy.