In 2008, Marquisé Alston-Allison’s mother and a small group of First Ladies decided that the silence around HIV and AIDS had gone on long enough. What started with mouth swabs at a Sunday church service became the First Ladies Health Initiative, a faith based organization that has since reached over 600,000 people with free health services. Today, as Executive Director, Alston-Allison is directing that mission toward Black maternal health with a free panel discussion in Los Angeles called Born to Thrive.
Black women are dying from pregnancy-related complications at significantly higher rates than anyone else. What is driving that?
It’s a heartbreaking thing because it doesn’t matter what your education status is, it doesn’t matter where you live in America. The maternal health crisis is a crisis no matter what color you are, but when it comes to Black American women, it becomes a disparity.
Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die giving birth than any other race in America. We know that with proper support, with our healthcare professionals believing what our mothers are saying the first time, those are things that we can do just to prevent these deaths.
Creating a community around pregnant mothers, whether that’s doula care, midwifery care, and also just informing the caregivers and the spouses and the partners of women. We know that educating everyone helps us stay here and helps mothers be with their babies long-term.
One of the ways you’re educating people is through your upcoming panel, Born to Thrive. Tell us about it.
One of the ways that First Ladies Health Initiative likes to start our initiatives is with a conversation. We are having a health panel called Born to Thrive. It’s our second one this year, the second in our series, and we’re really excited because we are bringing LA specific help. We have people from LA County coming, doctors from LA County, we have some mental health support.
We also have our celebrity guest, Ms. Vanessa E. Williams, who’s coming to give her experience and also moderate it in a way that is beneficial to the community. We’ll have our First Ladies on the panel. We’re bringing policy, lifestyle, culture, LA County all together for one conversation on one day.
Companies like Black Girl Vitamins are supporting this effort, so if someone comes, you’ll also get access to some Black Girl Vitamins, which is something you should be taking before, during, and after your pregnancy. By having these forums that are completely free to the public, we know that we are going to touch some lives.
Mental health is also one of the focuses of the panel. How does it connect to physical outcomes for Black mothers, and why is it so often left out of the conversation?
We don’t talk about depression enough in general when it comes to our communities. Put that on top of maternal health, and now you have postpartum. If we educate on what mental health looks like, what your partner’s gonna look like for the next five years.
We like to say it’s six months that a woman’s body changes, but from our studies, it’s been about five years where a woman feels like her body doesn’t come back, she doesn’t come back to herself until then.
Educating partners and communities and families on what this looks like, and the support that is needed, is key to keeping families together and also making sure that the women are heard and the women feel valued as they go through this process.
What are some warning signs during pregnancy that often get dismissed?
Things like wanting to be isolated. There’s never a time that it’s normal where you want to be completely isolated. I would say isolation, irritation, feeling angry all the time. We get the Black woman trope of, you’re always going off, you’re always angry, but that is so multifaceted. Being able to recognize that, no, you’re not crazy, no, you’re not some Black girl trope.
If you’re feeling this way, and you weren’t feeling it before, then something is wrong. You have to ask for help. Another thing is, watch your eating. If you’re eating too much or too little, these are all symptoms and signs of things that could tell you that maybe you need some mental health support.
How can Black women advocate for themselves when dealing with healthcare providers?
One of the ways to advocate for yourself is doula services. There are so many services for doulas and midwifery, and the doula really serves as the lawyer in the OR for you. On the Born to Thrive panel, we’ll have some doulas available to talk, because it’s important that a birthing woman have total care from the beginning to the end.
A lot of these care gaps happen because of systemic racism. We know it exists. There are plenty of studies saying that. But there are things that we can work around, like doula services. We’re also advocating for our doctors and health professionals to do a lot of these testings via telehealth, because people work, people can’t come in for a million reasons.
No matter what color you are, you go to the doctor, your blood pressure’s up 10 points just by walking in the door. If we can just take the temperature down a little bit, I think that will provide more care.
What would you want a Black woman who is pregnant or thinking about starting a family to take away from what the First Ladies Health Initiative is building?
For the Born to Thrive panel and everything that we do at First Ladies Health Initiative, the end goal is to know that you’re not alone. To know that there is a community around, and if you have questions, please ask them. There are so many doctors advocating for us, so many health professionals and people working within the institution to help.
What we’re trying to do is just connect the patient and the person to the right providers, and hopefully create some synergy so we have stronger families, stronger communities, and ultimately a big village that can hold more.
When and where is the Born to Thrive maternal health panel happening?
We are live on Saturday at FAME, which is First AME Church, from 12 to 1:30. The address is 2270 South Harvard Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. FAME Church has been around for generations, and when there is a problem in the community, they step up and solve it. We’re happy to be partnering, going on almost 15 years of partnering with them. Please come out. We’ll have Black Girl Vitamins, and if you want to RSVP, please go to firstladieshealth.com for more information.