Our Purpose
Oshun Family Center provides racially concordant care to members of the Black community who are seeking to achieve optimal wellness through psychotherapy and holistic healing and birthing modalities such as doula and lactation support. It is our goal to center the experiences of Black people and create a welcoming space for healing and refuge. We welcome those looking to break generational cycles and have agency over their bodies.
OUR WHY
Maternal mortality in the Commonwealth and across the country, continues to represent one of our most staggeringly dangerous health inequities. As noted by Dr. M. Mclemore, “The shameful secret is out: Although the number of women who die in childbirth globally has fallen in recent decades, the rates in the U.S. have gone up”. While globally, the maternal mortality rate declines, the opposite is true for the United States (Moaddab, et al. 2018; World Health Organization, 2018). Not only is the maternal mortality rate egregiously higher in the United States compared to our global peers, the mortality rates for Black women are even worse. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy related conditions than any of their peers with other racial identities (Weigal, 2019).
Like most states, Pennsylvania is one where Black women have higher rates of maternal mortality than their peers. For Black women in particular, the Commonwealth has yet to meet the Healthy People 2020 Maternal Mortality goal of 11.4 per 100,000 in the Commonwealth. (Healthy People, 2020). In Philadelphia specifically, there is a maternal mortality rate of 27.4 deaths per 100,000 live births, and Black women are twice as likely to die within one year of childbirth in Philadelphia than their white peers (Mehta, 2019; Robinson, 2018). The infant mortality rate across the entire commonwealth is 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births. The rate for Black women is double that (12.7 per 1,000). In Philadelphia, the infant mortality rate is 1.5x higher than the national average and communities of color experience these disparities at even higher rates than their white peers (Mehta, 2019). Initiatives like the one described here, Oshun Family Center, provides Black birthing persons with a culturally and racially-concordant, community based, transdisciplinary, integrative, perinatal wellness program and has the potential to impact positive change in health outcomes.
The Vision
Oshun Family Center envisions health equity across the reproductive and mental health spectrum. Families in underrepresented communities are in need of providers who embody aspects of their life as it relates to race, culture and ethnicity therefore it is our goal and vision to assist with overcoming the barrier and include race, culture or ethnicity based concordance for care.
how?
To continue supporting our efforts and the expansion of the organization please click here to donate.
CORE VALUES
Stay connected to the community in which our people are most impacted. Collaborate with healthcare providers, judicial servants, and social services to assist in a continuum of care. We are a collectivistic tribe and alignment is essential to growth.
Do what is right at all times, abide by ethical and moral standards. Uphold your own personal principles and stay true.
Appreciate the creativity of the staff and clients in order to further their exploration into themselves and flourish by participating in crafts, dance, music, or anything created by the person.
Create a safe space for individuals to feel vulnerable without the fear of judgment.
Be your unapologetic authentic self! No filter, no mask…..Be YOU!
Black Maternal Health Week
