TAMPA, Fla — In April 2018, Xaviera Bell said she should have walked out of a North Carolina hospital with her son Xander.
"The hardest thing I have ever done is say 'hello' and 'goodbye' at the same time," she said.
But she says poor care, based on her race, led to a premature birth and tragedy.
"So, I was released from the hospital with a box full of stuff I couldn't use and one of the things that was in the box was a book. But the book was not relative to what I was experiencing as a Black woman," she said.
Bell said this lack of representation and resources relevant to her experience as a black woman only compounded her grief.
"I had to have conversations with my black mother about why I didn't want to rely on religion. And I'm a Southerner, right? I grew up, up until 24, in Alabama. The rest of the time was in southern states like Florida and North Carolina. And so, how do I have those conversations with my black mom that I need to go to a therapist?" she said.
Bell said she researched and found that the resources she was looking for didn't exist. So she wrote a book herself, called "The Mourning After."
It's a collection of stories, support, and information—written by dozens of Black women from all walks of life.
She says she created this book to help hold these women through their grief and what comes after...
"Nobody teaches you how to live after you have buried a child," she said, "What I am telling you is that on the other side of mourning is joy."
According to the CDC, Black women in the U.S. are 3-4 times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy. The infant mortality rate for Black babies is 1-2 times higher than that for white babies.
Bell said she wrote the book to disrupt that pattern and to call on the medical community to do something about it.
"Do you want to be a bad experience? Or do you want to be a solution to a problem?" she said.
It's work that the community is hoping to carry on during Black Maternal Health Week.
According to the USF College of Public Health (COPH):
Led by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), Black Maternal Health Week (BMHW) is recognized each year from April 11-17 to bring attention and action in improving Black maternal health. It highlights how everyone can play a role in working to prevent pregnancy-related deaths and improving maternal health outcomes.
To learn more about how Tampa Bay is celebrating the week, click here.
