SEWSA 2016 Intersectionality in the New Millennium: An Assessment of Culture, Power, and Society

"Cut But Not Broken:" Black Women do VBAC

Room 220, DiGiorgio Campus Center (DiGs)

Birth outcomes for African American women are statistically complicated by intersections of sexism, racism, and classism. This ethnic group has higher numbers of surgical birth interventions for healthy pregnancies than any other ethnicity in the United States. There is a growing interest in the African American community to reclaim vaginal birth and thus empower black women, who were otherwise powerless, to refuse invasive medical intervention during normal low-risk labor and childbirth. Websites, personal blogs and social media sites like Facebook have become an important platform for this community, who are faced with the overwhelming over-representation of white women advocating for vaginal birth. Women who have a vaginal birth after one or more surgical Cesarean births share their stories and resources in the online group called Black Women do VBAC. In this paper I will examine African American women’s experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, focusing specifically on vaginal birth outcomes and the movement for a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean).