A New Pregnancy and Maternity Toolkit
The maternity journey is a beautiful experience for prospective parents, but not necessarily for all parents. The MBRRACE-UK has shown the significant inequalities that women from a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnicity can suffer in maternity and neonatal care. It is the case that black women are now 3.7 times more and Asian women 1.8 times more likely to die during pregnancy than white women.
As part of the Health and Wellbeing Alliance, at FaithAction we have identified the scope of tackling this issue, as many ethnic minorities tend to find comfort, guidance and unity in the various faith communities they are a part of.
Over the past three years we’ve been listening to faith communities, engaging with faith leaders, and developing recommendations to help communities do something about these inequalities.
Our toolkit
As a result, with the help and support of several faith-based organisations and medical professionals, we’ve been working on a pregnancy and maternity toolkit for faith leaders. This will not only guide conversations and actions to help navigate the issue, but aims to support closer collaborations with local maternity and neonatal systems.
Inside, you will find sections on understanding the inequalities, navigating the maternity system and steps for faith communities to make a difference with key resources and contacts.
Would you like to receive a copy of the Toolkit when it’s published? Register your interest, here!
The toolkit will be coming out in the coming months, but the work does not stop there.
Launching the toolkit
It is a disheartening reality that the
experience of maternity and neonatal care is not the same for everyone. The disparities are stark and cannot be ignored any longer. That is why we are taking this work forward this year by launching a national campaign to support faith leaders and LMNSs who pledge to work with our toolkit.
Our Parliamentary launch event in July will gather faith leaders, NHS Integrated Care System (ICS) leaders, and parliamentarians, to share experiences and provide the starting platform to build the future year’s work together, while raising awareness of the toolkit.
Look out for further activities later in the year, to see how this is leading to practical work on the ground.
At the end of the year, we will have finished our national impact work-streams, engaging with and supporting the new collaborative groups, and noting the participation among the communities and the health system.
From this, we aim to display a national picture of the impact of efforts and initiatives that have come from the partnerships through the toolkit to solve maternal inequalities.
For such a difficult subject to tackle, faith communities which already address emotional and spiritual needs can help to address the pressing concern of maternal inequalities. This demands collective and immediate attention and action.
Together, we can support strengthening the maternity system to cater to the needs of all women, regardless of their backgrounds while also respecting and harnessing their backgrounds.
For more information about Black Maternal Health Awareness Week follow Five X More.
