SOSC 2020
SOSC 2020: Birth Justice
Credits 2
POSE & OVERVIEW Black childbearing persons experience 4 times greater mortality than their white counterparts. Black babies are 2 times more likely to be born premature or low birth weight. Transgender individuals, gender non-binary folks, and queer-identified birthing people are commonly unable to access inclusive prenatal care. Latinx communities are too often marginalized during childbirth. Indigenous communities routinely have their cultural birth traditions violated and misappropriated. Pregnant and parenting adolescents face constant stigma and shame. Refugee communities experience little empathy and significant barriers to culturally aware birthing care. Incarcerated pregnant persons are shackled and subject to abuse. Midwifery care remains a white, middle-class phenomenon. Birth is not created equally. This course will introduce students to birth justice movements. Birth Justice movements aim to © 2017 Midwives College of Utah. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder. For permission, contact academicdean@midwifery.edu empower individuals during childbearing, to redress historical and contemporary power imbalances, to eliminate pervasive obstetric violence, and to dismantle the individual, interpersonal, and institutional oppression at play in health and care inequities. Through an experiential and service learning framework, this course aims to bridge theory with practice, bringing together MCU students with applied birth justice activists across the nation in a collective learning environment. The transformation that arises in and through our collective learning environment will lead students to further understand and engage in birth justice movements as Midwives of Excellence.
In this course we were privileged to have many very informative guest lectures from various backgrounds and cultures. Click here to view a list of the lecture topics.