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Post by Summre Blakely on Sept 28, 2016 3:10:16 GMT
While watching the discussion in the Unnatural Causes lecture, I found a point that Dr. Dennis made to be very interesting. While watching the documentary, I was very fixated on the present day and today's society. Today, we still have many prejudices, and many African Americans still face much discrimination on a day to day basis. Perhaps because I unfortunately do not see this on a day to day basis or have experienced it personally, it struck me that the fact that an African American baby was more than twice as likely to have a LBW (low birth weight) than a white baby seemed to be a very extreme result of simply chronic stress from this wrongful discrimination. While I 100% believe that this discrimination is really there and is causing major extra stress in African American women, I found it odd that the LBW would be experienced so quickly from that cause, and that it would be so widespread in the African American community. However, when Dr. Dennis brought up slavery and the fact that men and women dealt with not only discrimination but malnutrition, extreme labor, and in some cases even torture, it occurred to me that perhaps this effect of LBW has been a long time coming. I had been thinking about today's society, but the society of the past was even worse and caused much more damage. Perhaps enduring such intense levels of stress, malnutrition and poor treatment has even caused some genetic issues that are helping to affect African American babies in such extreme ways. I'm not sure if there would be a way to determine that or how someone would go about it, but that would be interesting to look at. This is a very difficult subject to discuss because it is so tragic that the African American community is still suffering from damage done from the evil that was slavery many years ago.
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Post by Megan Mikesell on Sept 28, 2016 14:37:44 GMT
I agree that a genetic component should be further researched. I did find it interesting that when they studied black immigrants to the United States they did not have low birth weights until a period of time later. This makes me think that there is something about our country specifically and not solely genetics. However, dld blacks coming to the US not face persecution/racism in their country, and if so why do birth weights only drop after facing discrimination in the United States? I believe this is a very complicated issue and more than likely has to do with a combination of issues including discrimination, genetics, and daily life stresses.
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Post by Summre Blakely on Sept 28, 2016 20:12:41 GMT
Megan, you brought up something that I clearly didn't think of! People definitely experience discrimination in all parts of the world - certainly not just America! So, perhaps there is something unique in our country that is causing this. This makes me think that perhaps we need to expand the scope behind chronic stress due to discrimination alone, and examine other uniquely American causes of chronic stress in the African American population. Like I noted in my other post on this documentary, we should pursue research in other discriminated-against populations to see if they are experiencing the same effects, and if not, maybe we are missing something in our logical thinking. Great points! Something sort of random this reminds me of... I've heard many times before that the subjective happiness levels of, say a farmer in the remote area of Arusha, Tanzania who makes $2-3 dollars a day is somewhat the same as the subjective happiness of an average, middle class, highly educated person in the U.S. Perhaps it is something about the material stresses in daily life that Americans experience. In a more developed country, people more so compare themselves to members of the wealthiest class and look at all of the material possessions that they want and "need" to make their lives easier. Perhaps something in this arena could be a tiny contributing factor to the unique effects we see happening in American minority populations. Obviously this wouldn't have such extreme effects as 2x the likelihood of LBW in African American infants, but perhaps it is a lead!
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Post by Lex Hurley on Oct 7, 2016 18:28:24 GMT
Summre, you raise a good point and think it's great for us all to ask these questions to ask why these trends exist instead of just accepting them at face value. There are myriad factors at play when talking about possible causes of preterm labor and low birth weight in infants, however I want to talk about stress and cortisol in particular since I believe it plays a major factor in this discussion. We already covered some of the individual effects of stress in the documentary: stress increases cortisol and nor/epinephrine production in bodies to create that infamous "fight or flight" response your body makes when it thinks it's in danger. Blood pressure heightens, heart rate increases, blood is diverted away from the digestive system to the brain and skeletal muscles (because why would you need to digest anything if you're about to run for your life?) -- all bodily to get up and get away from whatever's troubling you. Now, chronic stress is bad because if this response never attenuates, cortisol levels stay high, which leads to increased blood pressure, contributes to atherosclerosis, and generally is terrible for one's heart among many other negative health effects. Now how do you think that plays in for pregnant women who are chronically stressed due to discrimination or otherwise? Their body is constantly sending and receiving hormonal signals to "get up and go" which are also experienced by the growing infant. According to a review study by Mulder et al., multiple studies have shown that pregnant women with high levels of stress/anxiety are at higher risk for spontaneous abortions, preterm labor, and growth retarded (ie low birth weight) babies. 1 When the mother exhibits so many stress hormones over the course of a pregnancy, it signals her body to speed up development of the fetus, cutting corners if necessary, and pump it out that way she can better get away from the stressor. Now imagine this trend compounded over generation after generation from slavery through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement until now with Black Lives Matter and even casual discrimination experienced by African Americans such as the one gentleman in Unnatural Causes mentioning how he notices people following him through shops to make sure he doesn't steal anything or women clutching their purses a little tighter for the same reasons. Stress can cause widespread effects in one's health and it may be possible that when compounded through generations of African Americans, they may exhibit new or possibly more severe ones.
1) Mulder EJH, Robles de Medina PG, Huiznik AC, Van den Bergh BRH, Buitelaar JK, Visser GHA. 2002. Prenatal maternal stress: effects on pregnancy and the (unborn) child. Early Human Development. 70(1-2):3-14. Retrieved online October 7, 2016 from www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378378202000750. |
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