Battling Bias: Learning from the Lived Experience to Improve Perinatal Care & Advance Health Equity – 2022 Data from IRTH App’s Digital Platform

Implicit bias has been well documented as directly linked to the Black maternal mortality crises and high rates of Black infant deaths. However, there is an underlying issue that drives Black maternal/ infant mortality; systemic racism that leads to biased care that does not support healthy pregnancy, birth, and successful breastfeeding for Black women. This session will discuss findings from the analysis of reviews submitted by doulas to the Irth App, a robust database of Black patient experiences of maternity and infant care. Irth (as in Birth, but without the B for bias) is the first-of-its-kind review and recommendation engine designed for Black and brown women and birthing people to find and leave reviews of prenatal, birthing, postpartum, and pediatric experiences of care.