I am what is considered a rainbow baby. For people who don’t know what that is a rainbow baby is a child born after a miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death. When I was first informed of this I didn’t have much of an opinion. I felt bad for my mother but when I was told I was young and didn’t understand what that meant for my mom. After watching Aftershock there was a thought in my head.

Was my mom properly cared for by her doctors?  I hate that I have to question this but it doesn’t help that I was also a C-Section baby. Since C-Sections are more likely to be given to black women I question was necessary or if was it just simpler for them. For my mom having a child was difficult and it could’ve been more difficult based on her race. The idea of midwifery is prominent throughout Aftershock and I think about how it might’ve changed my birth.

Even thinking of other children I think about the difficulties many people go through. Aftershock really opened my eyes to a problem that goes hidden. It ties heavily into other ideas we talk about in class such as black people getting worse treatment from doctors in general but the concept of women is slightly different. The idea of them having a higher pain tolerance comes from nothing but is still currently believed in the medical field and that worries me. There have been times when I have complained to a doctor of pain and them asking multiple times if the pain was really that bad because I seemed to be fine but I felt that I needed to present being fine. Learning the ideas of the medial field are based on old practices based on racism is genuinely scary