The pace of progress is never fast enough for those who stand to suffer the biggest losses. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the glaring health inequities impacting Black mothers and babies in Kansas. Among the multitude of injustices Black Kansans face today, the disproportionate rates of death and devastating health complications for Black mothers and babies are especially appalling. In Kansas, Black mothers and other ethnic minorities account for around 13% of all births, but 60% of all maternal deaths[PDF]. Working to improve birth equity in Kansas, the Kansas Birth Equity Network started by defining birth equity in Kansas.
The statistics tell a difficult truth about a state in the heart of America. Even with vast resources at our disposal to ensure the health and well-being of mothers and babies, Kansas has willfully allowed racial disparities in maternal and infant mortality to persist. In creating and continuing to accept the inadequate actions of public and private systems tasked with caring for mothers and infants, we have knowingly perpetuated untold numbers of senseless and preventable deaths of Black mothers in childbirth.
For families in Kansas, health equity is more than simply a concept—it is a commitment to a shared future in which people from all ethnicities and identities can realize our full potential. It is in pursuing equity that we can finally acknowledge the pain of the past and the consequences for our forebearers that continue to reverberate into today. From this place of shared understanding, we can move together with solutions that inch us closer to a more just, equitable future. Defining equity has never been more crucial than in times like these.
Kansas Birth Equity Network
The Kansas Birth Equity Network was developed to engage diverse stakeholders to create solutions. Solutions that improve Black maternal, paternal, and infant health in Kansas through training, research, healthcare, and advocacy. The first approach to creating birth equity was to create a consensus on birth equity by defining birth equity among the stakeholders. One individual defined equity as “a condition in which every woman has everything she needs to have a safe and healthy pregnancy, delivery, and recovery surrounding her birth experience. It means maternal and infant mortality rates are not higher among one population [compared to] another.”
Another member of the network accurately defined birth equity as the act of “putting in place systems that give all patients access to the same high-quality outcomes, not just access to the same systems. It means providing patients with the tools they need to receive high-quality care.” The key concept here, in this definition, is the need to reform systems and points of access to level the playing field. Both definitions consider the necessity to abandon equality in favor of equity. Equality demands that everyone receives the exact same resources, while equity provides the resources that each individual needs to live up to their highest potential.
Another definition of birth equity was that “every pregnant person and family has the opportunity, full support, and financial support to have the pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience that they want to have. That their child is brought into the world safely, healthy, and loved. And, the pregnant person is supported, believed, and listened to every step of the way”. These definitions show that achieving birth equity requires an anti-racist approach to address the systemic factors in our financial systems and healthcare delivery systems to name a few, that lead to birth inequity.
Defining Birth Equity Is Not Enough
For the sake of our future birth equity work, we must not only define the concept of birth equity in its historical and social context, but we must also work tirelessly to ensure that future generations experience real health equity. Working collectively for change is more important now than ever before. Equity must be an action we take together, bravely confronting the multitude of factors that have landed us where we currently stand today. Come back tomorrow to read our second post in this series.
Special thanks to Michelle Redmond, Ph.D. for her contributions to this post.
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