The Long-Term Impacts of Reproductive Trauma in Rural Black Birthing Communities and the Role of Religious Involvement

This paper examines how religious involvement may be a particularly potent yet understudied resource for Black mothers embedded in a rural, predominantly Black community as they navigate a fragmented maternal health care system and cultivate strategies of healing and recovery in light of reproductive trauma. By drawing on 29 qualitative interviews with Black mothers, this study engages a life course perspective through a Womanist sociological lens to demonstrate how Black mothers navigate the long-term impacts of reproductive trauma through four key social processes: delaying individual responses to reproductive trauma, managing heightened grief across the life course, reevaluating healthcare utilization, and extending the “long arm” of religion through (non)organizational religious practices. We conclude by providing recommendations to guide future research examining the intersections of religious involvement and reproductive trauma in Black birthing communities.