Maternal Mortality: Address the Pipeline of Sexual Abuse and the Outcomes

Black Women’s Blueprint coined the Sexual Abuse to Maternal Mortality Pipeline (SAMM), the result of a six-year national sexual assault and GBV intervention process to collect survivor narratives as a Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Rape culture underlies both the pervasive nature of sexual violence in our society as well as the sexual abuse to material mortality and morbidity pipeline. There is a need for immediate interventions that work to eliminate the rape-culture which is constantly reienforced into institutions of women’s health care and more alarmingly in maternal wards, and labor and delivery. Rape culture as defined by advocates is a culture perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language,, and thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. Women of color, LGBTQ GNCNB folks, disabled folks, sex workers, undocumented immigrants etc. are more susceptible to exposure to rape culture in all aspects of life - including within the medical profession. A culture shift is necessary and long overdue in order to end the epidemic of women of color dying in childbirth and experiencing negative birth outcomes.

In this live webinar we will discuss:

1. Existing barriers to vital healthcare and reproductive counseling and how to break down said barriers for patients before they enter the building.
2. Roles that physicians, healthcare professionals, and advocates play in prevention and intervention
3. Ways to actively dismantle sexual and reproductive violence as an adherent to societal culture which upholds norms that devalue women’s bodies and diminish their agency as self-possessed people with knowledge of their bodily needs and limits.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Participants will learn how to work towards shifting the culture around gynecological, maternal and obstetrics health in order to reduce rape culture and non-consensual behaviors toward women, trans and non-binary bodies across their reproductive life span.
2. Participants will build their own toolkit and plan for implementing knowledge against through the SAMM webinar series
3. Participants will walk away with concrete tools and strategies for unifying the sexual assault prevention movement and the reproductive justice movement