African American Maternal Health Launches Project For New Mothers

Kimberly Seals Allers, editorial director of the Women's eNews Black Maternal Health project, supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, uses her expertise and personal struggles to shed light on the African American motherhood experience from pregnancy and beyond.

Using her own personal stories Seals-Allers has created a compelling blog that generates groundbreaking, one-of-a-kind conversations on the health and lives of black women, mothers, and families. The blog is exclusively available at: http://www.womensenews.org/sisterspace

Seals- Allers examines the multi-dimensional issues surrounding maternal health in the African American community and their wide reaching impact. African American communities experience high maternal and infant mortality rates and a growing number of medical experts believe the disparity is caused not by poverty, as has been assumed, but by the many stressors of racism throughout African American lives.

Her writing comes from her passion for empowering Black women as mothers and chronicling their unique journey.

African American women represent nearly half of maternal mortalities even though they form only 12 percent of the US population.

Black women are 3 to 6 times more likely to die during pregnancy and the six weeks after delivery than U.S. white and Latina women.

Black women are also least likely to breastfeed a child exclusively for six months. Only 20 percent were following government recommendations and exclusively nursing when their infants, compared to the 40 percent of white women who did so. Formula feeding increases the risks of asthma, obesity, diabetes and infections in children