‘Pregnant While Black’ is a powerful book. As a black woman in medical school, I was already aware of some of the information presented in this book, but it was still staggering to know that in this day and age, we are still dealing with this. While this book tackles the disparities black women face, the author definitely had a hopeful tone and outlook, which is encouraging. This book should definitely be added to the medical school curriculum in this country, especially for those who are interested in entering the OB/GYN field. I will definitely be sharing this book with my medical school peers and to the black women in my life! ( )

This was a thoughtful and informative book on a major issue in the United States. This book did a wonderful job of sharing issues and information around maternal health of black women. The information in this book is relayed in a way that is accessible and clear. The use of stories makes this all the more real and emotional. Often books like this can be too caught up in the jargon, but this book was written so that even people without a medical degree can understand the nuances of this issue. Additionally, Dr. Rainford handles this with compassion. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about this issue. ( )

This is an important and informative book. I actually thought this book would be great for improving my own knowledge as well as bringing to work because I work intimately with diversity and inclusion efforts for college students. Thus, this book is good not only for me but for my community. The writing is splendid and eye-opening.

Pregnant While Black By Monique Rainford
Reviewed by Ellin Pollachek, PhD.

Racism is generally thought of in terms of discrimination in jobs and housing, health care and wages as well as in the criminal justice and educational systems. While all of this is true, Dr. Monique Rainford’s latest book Pregnant While Black points out the cumulative effect of how these racially biased systems contribute to, if not cause, the fact that “[b]lack women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy than if they were described as white.”
Rainford, Gynecologist and Obstetrician, is a graduate of Harvard Medical School. In her well-documented book (of the 245 pages, 69 are Endnotes and Bibliography) she combines the personal with the statistical, all the while avoiding the blame game. Rainford sees the problems which affect pregnant black women as more holistic, recounting America’s racially compromised social system which results in the medical establishment’s inability to see their own prejudices and how this leads to the disproportionate number of deaths of pregnant black women, post-pregnant black women and their babies.
Born in America, Rainford’s parents wanted to spare her from both the implicit and explicit racism that is part of America’s social construct. They returned to where they were born and brought their 7 year old daughter with them and that is where Monique Rainford lived until it was time for college. She chose the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Medical School for her education. It was, while studying at Harvard’s Medical School that she learned Jamaica had less infant mortality rates than black babies born in the USA.
The fact was startling given America’s state-of-the-art medical research and technology and Jamaica’s lack thereof. Rainford began her research as to how this could happen.
Not limiting herself to libraries, it was in her own life and that of her patients that she began to unravel the whats, whys and hows behind the high death rate of black pregnant women.
Rainford writes about the affects of epigenetics on black people. Epigenetics is the study of how behavior and environment affect the way genes are expressed without actually changing the genetic code. In other words:

the effects of slavery, Jim Crow, persistent economic barriers, continued mistreatment of Black people, based on a completely avariciously designed human notion that Black people are lesser human beings can affect a developing baby in the womb. If this baby is a girl, it further affects the baby girl’s developing eggs—the same eggs that can ultimately be mobilized for the conception of her own children. (p. 16)

The effects of racism are generational, passed on from family members who are long since dead. And those children then pass it on to their children.
The fact that Black women have a disproportionate amount of babies born at low birth weights which can later affect the physical and mental development is another result of America’s social construct. The fact that when a woman finds she can’t conceive and a doctor doesn’t suggest IVF treatment because the assumption is that a Black woman couldn’t afford the treatment is another one of America’s racist constructions.
The list goes on.
Dr. Rainford’s revelations are not all new but many are. The point is that whether new or old, it’s time that they are addressed and fixed.
Dr. Rainford’s book is jarring and important. When I think of the inequality of which she writes and the affect on mothers and their babies I wonder how many Charlie Parkers, Augusta Savages, Joshua Johnsons, Dorothy Vaughans and Aretha Franklins we have not had the chance to know because they didn’t live long enough to show the world what they were meant to accomplish.

This is a detailed depiction of some of the many racial disparities Black women face while they are pregnant. She realizes that simply treating the symptoms will not cure it all, while still pointing out these injustices and things that can cause them as well as the effects these have on pregnant Black women. There are a lot of statistics, which both works well, but can also make it slightly inaccessible for some audiences who may not understand them. ( )