When the Bough Breaks: Kim Andersons Story

When the Bough Breaks: Kim Andersons Story

For decades, health experts have tried to determine why African-American babies are twice as likely to die as white infants. When the Bough Breaks: Kim Anderson's story was very informative on this subject. As I watched this documentary I realized that because racism is such a strong factor in African Americans lives, it causes an unhealthy amount of stress. This in turn can cause infant mortality which is something I did not know until viewing this film. Kim Anderson was a very successful business woman and still had effects put forth by racism during her pregnancy. Kim was an African American but racism as it pertains to pregnancy affects other races as well such as American Indians , Puerto Ricans and Mexicans although the infant mortality rate is highest in African Americans. I believe that racism is defiantly a stress factor in most people's lives and I think that it may be a huge factor when it comes to infant mortality and overall health but I also think that there are other factors that come into play when speaking about infant deaths such as poverty levels, age of pregnancy and proper health care.

In Kim Anderson's story, she was a very successful business woman, exercised daily, and was in good health along with being able to afford health care for her and her unborn baby. She still had a low birth rate baby and it amounted to the stress cause by racism. Psychologists have done studies and when you are always prone to things like racism, your body releases stress hormones and your body basically becomes overloaded which affects the unborn baby. It also constricts proper blood flow though out your body. Chronic stress of racism is a wearing out of the body and infant mortality is a serious risk of this. It only makes sense to say that stress can cause infant mortality because stress causes other health risks in our human lives all the time.

Kim Anderson was a wealthy woman who had proper health insurance but what about the ones who do not have the needs to acquire proper health care. People who are at the poverty level and who have no way to get to doctors are at risk as well. This may include people from other races such as American Indians, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, web). The center for disease control and prevention states that Puerto Ricans have 96 percent of infant mortality and the African Americans have 2.76 percent in 2008. According to guttmacher.org, "Blacks and Hispanics have the highest teen pregnancies rates (126 and 127 per 1,000)." I personally believe that that not only does stress from racism come into play when talking about infant mortality but also lack of health care and age.

I did not know that infant mortality affected every 6.8 births in the US for every 1000. I was shocked to learn that there was a dramatic difference between Africans births and White births. The documentary really did a good job of showing and portraying facts to make the point clear. When talking with a friend of mine who personally deals with infants at Children's hospital she said the facts were almost spot on. She stated that the infant mortality does seem higher with African Americans and low birth rates are more prevalent with African Americans as well. She said they see a lot of pre-term births and most end with the child being hooked up to multiple breathing machines and lots of tubes and hoses. It's startling to hear. I guess I never really looked into it because it never really affected me personally. But looking at this movie and hearing my friend said these things plus researching