Access + Privilege
*Content Note* We recognize that The Nourished Postpartum Challenge may stir up past trauma, or feel confronting to folks currently pregnant or in the early postpartum months. What may feel clarifying and cathartic to one person may be another person’s deepest trigger. Please care for yourself this week, share what feels safe to you, and if you realize you need deeper mental health support, we have created a Resources page which you can find here.
As we work collectively to create a nourished postpartum future, we have to acknowledge the barriers to access and the disproportionate access to those people at many intersections of privilege. For a true healing of the collective postpartum wound we need: systemic change at a root level particularly across medine and education, leadership that understands and represents the communities they serve, community supported efforts that share responsibility/accountability for their postpartum community members and of course, personal advocacy. There is not one thing, this is not even a BOTH, AND, this is an ALL AND, we need all of the layers and levels to coalesce into a postpartum movement. Our dream is a Nourished Postpartum for EVERYONE, not just wealthy white influencers with sponsorships from the latest belly band. This will require all of us showing up, far beyond instagram and far beyond this week.
Today’s prompt brings to the forefront, the structural issues folks face in having a Nourished Postpartum - this is in no way an exhaustive list or study, but we hope to illuminate some places where work needs to happen to create a ripple effect far beyond this challenge.
First and foremost: it is a privilege to have access to services and resources.
Second of all: the more privilege you have, the greater access you are granted.
A nourished postpartum becomes impossible when there is no Family leave policy, no healing supplies provided or afforded, no care provider options, no home visit options, even logistics like rural settings can create their own access barrier. Not everyone is given access to many of the tools, practitioners, modalities and opportunities to set up for, and truly receive, a Nourished Postpartum. And further to that, for people that exist at many intersections of oppression, the resources/practitioners/classes/spaces that ARE accessible, may not feel safe, culturally appropriate or nourishing to receive.
Questions to support you going deeper here:
What have I learned this week?
Can I provide resources, or look at the gaps in my community and advocate for them to be filled?
Is there someone in my community trying to do this work? How can I amplify that or support it?
What does my real life community have access to? Can everyone access it, or just some people? How could we change that?
What could postpartum advocacy look like in my community?
What are creative ways to support postpartum people in my community?
Envision a future where a Nourished Postpartum is a fundamental human right, not something only afforded to those with access and privilege.
We hope this week has helped you move the personal, familial, ancestral and collective significance of a Nourished Postpartum from afterthought to “Of course!”