Five X More One Year Anniversary – Our Mission Remains The Same.

Our mission at #fivexmore is to raise awareness that Black women in the UK are five times more likely to die during pregnancy and after childbirth in comparison to a white women but to also empower women who are pregnant and going into labour with our five recommended steps. We seek to amplify Black women’s voices who are seldom heard and advocate for a change in these statistics that disproportionately affect Black women.

We take our core statistics from the MBRRACE-UK report which stands for Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK. MBRRACE looks at lessons learned to inform maternity care from the UK and Ireland and Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths and Morbidity.

Overall, pregnancy is still very safe in the UK. A breakdown of the statistics from the 2019 report show us that out of 2,280,451 women who gave birth in 2015-2017, 209 women died.

What is important to note is the inequalities behind these figures. Out of those 209 women that died, Black women had a five times higher risk of dying yet only accounted for 4% of births. While it is important to note that the UK has one of the lowest maternal death rates in the world, it is still not zero and there is clearly a disparity in those numbers and that is why we seek to advocate for change.

This report is useful, but it also leaves us with a lot of questions that there are no satisfactory answers for. There has not been further research into the exact causes of death specifically for Black women which would be helpful to know, especially if there is a common theme in the deaths that might be avoidable. However, it is impossible to see those statistics and not consider racism in some form whether institutional, structural or direct. To think this is all down to chance or biological factors is damaging and unhelpful.

Thanks to our petition, the government have now committed to “funding a NIHR Policy Research Unit in Maternal and Neonatal Health and Care study into factors associated with the higher risk of maternal death for Black and South Asian women.” Which is a step in the right direction. However, we need more specific and immediate action to be taken to improve outcomes for Black women outside of the continuity of care model which they proposed will be in place for 75% of “BAME” women by 2024. This response was quite disappointing from the Government for many reasons so we have created a template letter that you can draft to your local MP to ask the Department of Health and Social Care to give us another solution outside of continuity of care which can be found here. What happens to these women that are at a higher risk in the meantime?

That is where our recommended steps come in. We hope to empower Black pregnant women with these steps to take during pregnancy and labour which are:

1) SPEAK UP. If you feel like something isn’t right, make sure you speak to a medical professional and don’t stay silent.

2) FIND AN ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF. This could be your partner, a family member or a trusted friend that can speak on your behalf if need be.

3) SEEK A SECOND OPINION. You are allowed to ask for a second opinion of another medical professional if you feel you need to.

4) TRUST YOUR GUT FEELING. If you feel like something isn’t right, make sure you speak to a medical professional and don’t stay silent.

5) DO YOUR RESEARCH ON PREGNANCY AND LABOUR via trusted sources such as NHS.uk, nice.org.uk and patient.info.

We have also recently teamed up with the Positive Birthing Company to give 100 black women every month access to their digital hypnobirthing pack and we will continue to work hard to try and improve maternal outcomes for Black women across the UK.

We will continue to amplify Black women’s voices and stories through our blog and across our social media platforms because if lives are to be saved, we must listen to and face hard truths.

You might be asking yourself, what can I do to help?

We ask that people continue to take their #fivexmore selfie on social media, tagging five friends and sharing the 5 recommended steps. You can download the template letter to send to your local MP following on from the petition which can be found here. Finally you can donate here to help us continue to raise awareness of the campaign. Keep having discussions with people about your lived experience and be a force for change.

Together we can make it happen. Thank you so much for all your help and support so far, lets see how much more change we can achieve in the next year and beyond to help change these statistics and outcomes for Black women.

Tinuke (Co-founder)