'The Black Mother's Green Book' Seeks to Improve Birth Experiences for Black Women

A new app launched ahead of Mother's Day invokes Victor Hugo Green's historic Green Book as it attempts to help Black mothers navigate the perils of racism in the medical industry. Independent agency Mother worked with Irth, a non-profit tech project of Narrative Nation, on the launch of "The Black Mother's Green Book" today. Referencing Victor Hugo Green's historic Green Book, the app calls on Black mothers, initially in New York, to review doctors and hospitals in order to create a directory as a guide to safer birth experiences, with the directory scheduled for release on August 25. The effort highlights the increased risks Black mothers face due to the systemic racism of the medical industry, highlighting that Black women in New York City are 12 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. Today's launch will be followed by a Clubhouse chat tomorrow diving deeper into the subject. Irth founder Kimberly Seals Allers that while there was a lot of discussion around increased mortality rates for Black mothers, there didn't seem to be a lot of talk about solutions. "You can't test this in the same way that Victor Green was able to, but the idea is that Black people still need tools to safely travel in this world," she said, adding that she's confident it will result in a meaningful guide for Black women in New York. "Ultimately we're shifting the narrative," she added. "We are one of the most powerful consumer forces in the country. … We're using that to say out loud where Black women are receiving good care and where they’re not." Working with Mother For Seals Allers, the app's creation came from a deeply personal place. When she gave birth to her own child, she thought she had carefully chosen a highly-rated hospital which came highly recommended, but she had a terrible experience at odds with the experiences of those of women she had asked for input. "I realized the folks I were asking were white women," she told Adweek. "I was treated like an unwed Black woman with basic insurance. I did everything I could, but I didn’t have the same experience. … People aren’t treated the same way at the same place." She didn't take working with an agency partner to help launch the effort lightly, and she said she was impressed by Mother's team from the first presentation. "When I create things for my community, I take it seriously who I work with," she said. "From the first presentation I was impressed by their thoroughness, and they had a diverse team and people could speak to the issue and were willing to learn." A race to the top Seals Allers explained that the app specifically asks about various aspects of mothers' experiences, such as dismissiveness over pain levels or outright hostility. In the process, she hopes the project can provide the type of transparency currently lacking from the medical industry, particularly around issues related to systemic racism. "We are going to make that public and use that to move the industry," she said. "I hope that those that are getting five-star ratings and positive comments will cause others to want that too and create a mechanism to achieve that … to start a race to the top instead of a race to nowhere." From there, the hope is that the project can work with hospitals to turn qualitative responses into quantitative data to drive change. "We want to break down the details so we don’t have a conversation about bias that’s abstract," she explained. "We hope it's a starting point for hospitals to dig deeper."