Making Birth Stories Matter(S): Working Toward Reproductive Health Justice an Examination of Health, Communication, Culture, and Identity Through Blending Critical Autoethnography and Narratives of Women Birthing with Doulas

Breonna R. Riddick

Advisor: Richard T Craig, PhD, Department of Communication

Committee Members: Iccha Basnyat, Timothy Gibson

Horizon Hall, #5225
April 11, 2024, 11:00 AM to 01:00 PM

Abstract:

Statistics from the CDC show the rate for maternal mortality in the United States continued to rise in 2023 with Black women reported three to four times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy-related complications than non-Hispanic White women (Eissen et al., 2019; Hoyert, 2023). COVID-19 further complicated the maternal health crisis (Hoyert, 2023). The maternal and infant mortality statistics continue to be egregious, yet conversations contextualizing these statics are silenced, rendering people and their stories “disposable”. Uncovering harmful dominant attitudes relating to reproductive health is important for transforming culture and wellbeing for marginalized women. As a community birth doula, advocate, researcher, and doctoral student, I blend multiple intersectional and culture-centered methodologies (Esposito & Evans-Winters, 2022) from critical and qualitative (Corbin & Strauss, 2014) paradigms to conduct a cultural analysis of birthing for women birthing in the United States. Birth doulas are described as trained labor-support professionals who provide continuous emotional, physical, and informational support for families during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum periods (BADT, 2021). Birth doulas have increased healthy birth outcomes, including reducing unnecessary medical interventions and decreasing the time spent in the most intense phases of labor (Gruber, Cupito & Dobson, 2013). I present tensions from an analysis of individual semi-structured interviews (Corbin & Strauss, 2014) with women who gave birth with a doula present, along with autoethnographic accounts of my personal experiences related to reproductive justice and birth work. This project uses the tenets of the Culture Centered Approach and Reproductive Justice frameworks to interrogate the intersections of disposability and social justice for birthing women in the United States. These stories are important for transforming narratives around birth and improving health outcomes for birthing women and future generations.

Keywords: Reproductive justice, birth narratives, health communication, doula, culture centered approach, critical methods