Doctor Diane Banigo didn’t obtain her title for the explanations she originally pursued it. When she began down the pre-med track during her education, her plan was to change into an OB-GYN because she had all the time desired to deliver babies. But after discussions with a mentor who taught one among her classes, she decided to change into a midwife. Her hope was that this path would allow her to do the work she desired to do while maintaining a greater work-life balance.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. She spent quite a lot of busy years in full-scope practices providing each clinical and birthing care before eventually going back to highschool to change into a doctorate-prepared midwife. The rationale? She was observing a number of inequity within the care her patients received, and she or he desired to get into the spaces where that inequity appeared to start.
“[Black and brown women] are three to 4 times more more likely to have a foul final result or not make it out of the birthing suite,” Dr. Banigo reminds us. “Black babies are born too small, too early. We all know that everyone’s seeing it now, everybody’s putting it wherever they will put it to get attention, to get funding. But what we’re not talking about are the disparities within the lived experience of birthing and being pregnant while Black.”
On this episode of Off the Charts, Dr. Banigo explains how these care iniquities are perpetuated and why community and partnership are so key to resolving them. Take heed to the episode or read the transcript.
How lived experience gets missed
Microaggressions aren’t a latest concept. Studies and innumerable personal accounts have shown that folks make and express race-based assumptions about individuals in a wide selection of contexts. Our host Dr. Steven Jackson gives an example where he received uncomfortable, if technically positive, comments from airline staff simply for being a Black man in firstclass together with his family. Dr. Banigo cites cases where patients and even fellow providers assumed she was significantly less qualified than she is, despite contextual evidence. It begs the query: If this happens to certified professionals, what does it mean for a Black woman getting pregnancy care?
Assumptions, invalidations and other dismissals of lived experience in every day life are one matter, but within the context of health care, there will be very real consequences. If a care provider, as an authority figure, minimizes an expectant mother’s comments about how she’s feeling, it won’t necessarily be clear to her whether it’s coming from a spot of experience or a spot of prejudice. She may not know that that attitude ought to be challenged – and even when she does challenge it, it might not go anywhere if someone throughout the care system isn’t advocating for her.
People need to consider that health care professionals are giving them due consideration. But Dr. Banigo describes that she’s had to clarify to women she’s worked with that their experiences weren’t normal, that the behavior of their care team actually undermined their care. She will be able to discover and explain this because she’s been on each side: She’s a Black mother who has years of experience working in health care. So what can we do to be sure that lived experience is honored on a broader scale?
Constructing community to vary what’s “normal”
Today, Dr. Banigo has more of the work-life balance she was originally hoping for. She has a per diem position at a birth center, and that flexibility allows her to also put attention towards community engagement. Together with community relations liaison Ciana Cullens, Dr. Banigo conducts one-on-one interviews and hosts community circles for ladies to share their experiences.
The community circles have proven to be deeply validating for his or her participants. Women get to see that their experiences in various care systems aren’t unique, they usually get to listen to that they deserve higher. In a single sense, that is already a step towards change, as it might probably enable participants to self-advocate more effectively. They’ll go into their care systems with a fuller understanding of how they ought to be treated. “We are able to’t empower people,” Dr. Banigo says, “They already possess it. But we give them permission to execute the ability that they possess.”
At the identical time, these community circles also set a precious precedent: Care providers can use their credentials to create spaces where people feel truly comfortable sharing their lived experiences – as long as the spaces aren’t controlled by those credentials. It needs to be a partnership. People need to be willing to ask for space and share in it, and providers need to have the compassion to actually listen.
It takes cooperation to vary a system. And ultimately, the style of relationship-building that Dr. Banigo facilitates needs to be adopted beyond a single health care system, and beyond the health care industry. But so long as people keep asking for and creating space for the conversation, then energy is moving in the precise direction.
To listen to more from Dr. Banigo, including stories from her profession, current projects and the way she’s working to vary the image of what care providers can appear like, hearken to this episode of Off the Charts.