Document Type
Master's Culminating Experience
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
The health disparity surrounding infant mortality has been a challenge for public health professionals for the past two decades. Today African American babies continue to die at a rate two times higher than the nation’s average rate. The purpose of this study was to explore African American mothers’ perspectives on their pregnancy experience and their babies’ birth outcomes, as a way to provide suggestions for current efforts and interventions being used to lower the rate of infant mortality in the African American population. This study examined fifteen peer reviewed articles that shared the perspectives of African American women who were either pregnant, had children or were of childbearing age. The articles were analyzed and placed into groups to come up with common themes that were present throughout the fifteen articles. The themes that were developed from the selected articles included: a) support & empowerment, b) knowledge & resources, and c) access to quality care. There is overlap between all three themes which suggested that all three themes work together in providing an ideal pregnancy. Even with all three themes working together it was recognized that the impact of each theme could vary depending on the mothers’ background. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge different value systems when developing interventions to address the issue of infant mortality rather than applying one intervention to all.
Repository Citation
Hairston, K. M. (2019). The Perspectives of African American Women: Their Pregnancy Experience and Their Babies’ Birth Outcomes. Wright State University. Dayton, Ohio.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
