Rochaun Meadows-Fernandez

Since COVID-19 is an infection that can also impact one’s cardiovascular system, there’s a concern for heart attacks and blood clots—and particularly so for Black women who are pregnant.
Renee Davis didn’t enter 2020 with any assumptions. But like many Americans, Davis—who asked to use a pseudonym so she could speak candidly about her medical experiences—wishes that someone could have told her that this year would be emotionally taxing on all fronts, especially while pregnant.
“I’ve had to li...

If you’re not comfortable affirming my race and gender, you’re not able to provide the support I need.
I think folks believe I’m joking when I say it took seeing six or seven mental health professionals before I found one who was a good fit.
Don’t even get me started on my marriage therapist.
I wouldn’t say the others were bad counselors — at least not all of them. What I can say is that they were a bad fit for me as a Black woman.
To support me as a client, a counselor has to understand how ...

ve always known it was important to be “healthy.” But for much of my life, I didn’t know how to get there.
Growing up in the South, “health” was most often framed around spiritual wellness. As far as my elders were concerned, as long as there was time to regularly pray and read the Bible, I’d achieved the only self-betterment that mattered.
Don’t get me wrong, my family found it sinful to move through the day without having a “good breakfast.” But those meals looked nothing like the food pyra...

I don’t recall noticing that I was struggling with early motherhood before the nurse at my son’s first checkup flagged my mental health screening.
It’s no wonder, though. After all, my introduction to motherhood had included a brief NICU stay for my son and residual birth trauma and body pain for me. Plus, my husband and I had concerns over my son’s ability to latch and thrive. All of this brought on sadness and occasionally disassociation. It didn’t take long before these feelings became a w...

"Mommy, can you protect me from the bad guys?" my 4-year-old son asks softly while he watches TV. He's thinking of superheroes and villains, and he poses the question with the innocence and curiosity of any other preschooler. But what he doesn't know is that there are "bad guys" everywhere — including the folks who believe he's a bad-guy-in-training just because he's Black.
Admittedly, when the headlines of police brutality and racial oppression have hit me especially hard, I've said, "I don'...

N/A

Win McNamee/Getty Images
When one of us loses a child, all of us feel that hurt; vicarious trauma is an integral aspect of Black motherhood.
My grandmother raised children in the legacy of Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was kidnapped, beaten, mutilated, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River in 1955. My mother grew up in the shadow of Till and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombings, where four Black young girls were killed and many others injured in what was the ...

Image
According to Ph.D., a psychologist and host of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, black girls are often characterized as “little women.” Teachers, and even parents, may expect black girls to exceed age-appropriate levels of responsibility at home or assume they don’t need to be comforted after emotionally distressing events, according to researchers.

Becoming a mother solidified my passion for activism. From the maternal health challenges that plagued the births of both of my children to the wide scale manifestations of bias from which I hope to protect them, activism seemed like an unavoidable consequence of mothering while Black.
My family’s journey has been documented in the public record. A 2017 clip from my local newspaper in Cheyenne, Wyoming, features me holding my then-one-year-old son in one hand and a sign that reads “Ain’t I a ...

In early March, Taylor DeClue and her fiancé left New Orleans to celebrate their pregnancy in Illinois with family. They had no idea it was the last time they’d be home before their son arrived due to the rapidly increasing number of cases of COVID-19 in New Orleans.
“The decision was made an hour before I was supposed to get on the plane to head back. I’m not so much worried about catching the virus, but I am worried about the impact a hospital will have on my son’s birth,” DeClue explained....

Image
, an assistant professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, suggested further engaging young children in black history by showing them examples of local heroes: “We often focus on key figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks,” he said. “However, it’s also important to consider local community leaders who have made contributions.”

Last year, three inflamed, welt-like bumps appeared on my two-year-old son’s shoulder, arm, and temple. So I called the pediatrician’s office in my rural town.
The doctor seemed unconcerned and prescribed an anti-bacterial and a steroid cream. Days later, the bumps multiplied, covering my son’s torso, arms, and legs. A different doctor saw him, asked about our family’s history of skin conditions, and gave a diagnosis that left me confused: atopic dermatitis, commonly known as eczema.
Her fast...

I can’t pinpoint the exact moment the world first informed me that Black women were supposed to move through life with suffering and pain. Growing up, most of the depictions of Blackness I saw around me were in the context of struggle. On the rare occasion I saw Black people who weren’t struggling, there was an underlying suggestion that my family— my mom, my brother, and I—shared responsibility for the barriers that limited us.
I’m not fighting the same exact battles as my parents, or my gra...