Hi Everyone,

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time talking about our broken food system, and how the lack of access to healthy food in many poor communities effects the health and education of the children living in those neighborhoods. And we have talked about big corporations dumping toxic wastes, and the environmental impact that industrial agriculture, fracking and GMO’s have on in our communities. But I have not talked a lot about the disparities in health care, and the impact that has on life expectancy, especially when it comes to our national infant mortality rate. As you read this, our Republican Senate is working behind closed doors to re-vamp our national health care program, and deny access to health care for over 20 million people. What they should be doing is addressing the disparities that already exist. Our infant mortality rate is a national embarrassment! We have the highest infant mortality rate out of the wealthiest 27 countries, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control. A baby born in the U.S. is nearly three times as likely to die during her first year of life as one born in Finland or Japan. Despite healthcare spending levels that are significantly higher than any other country in the world, a baby born in the U.S. is less likely to see his first birthday than one born in Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. Or in Belarus, or in Cuba, for that matter. The U.S. rate of 6.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births masks considerable state-level variation. If Alabama were a country, its rate of 8.7 infant deaths per 1,000 would place it slightly behind Lebanon in the world rankings. Mississippi, with its 9.6 deaths, would be somewhere between Botswana and Bahrain. It’s unbelievable! And the outcome for mothers is not much better. Mothers in the U.S. are also more likely to die than those in other high-income countries. The truth is, women of color bear the brunt of these deaths. Poor, unmarried and young African-American mothers lose their babies at much higher rates than the U.S. average in many cities. For instance, a black mother in San Francisco is six times as likely as a white mother to lose her child before its first birthday, according to a report from Save the Children. So what can we do about it? We can start by sharing stories of mothers making better choices, of doctors choosing homebirths over hospital births, of documentary films like, The Business of Being Born, and of high profile women choosing to give birth at home, rather than subjecting themselves to the hospital, as Beyoncé is doing.

I have invited 2 guests from the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM) to join me on the Progressive Radio Network, to talk about the advantages midwifery offers to women in prenatal care, postnatal care, and in the birthing experience. My first guest is Kristin Effland, a graduate from the Master of Arts in Maternal-Child Health Systems program at Bastyr University and founder of the website, Equity in Midwife Education and Tamara Wrenn, who is the Executive Director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery (FAM.) Tamara’s expertise on the long-term impact of improving women’s wellness through the lifespan, putting the theory of the Life Course Model into practice, and applying the model as an intervention to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in infant and maternal mortality makes her the perfect guest to talk about these issues. Please join me in welcoming both Kristin Effland and Tamara Wrenn on my show.

Remember, my show is recorded live, every Thursday, from 10-11 am, EST.  To tune in, navigate to PRN.fm and click the “Listen Live” button on the left. Also try downloading the PRN mobile app, and take the station with you wherever you go! If you want to call in during the show with any questions for me or my guest, the call in number is 888-874-4888.

If you can’t tune in at that time, you can listen to the show in the PRN archives, or through a direct phone line to my archives. Just dial 1-701-719-0880, and you can listen to the past 5 weeks of shows! Of course you can also access the shows through my website, or through iTunes. Please “like” iEat Green’s Facebook page and feel free to rate the show and leave comments on iTunes and on my website. Thank you all for your support.

With love and gratitude,

Bhavani