"When the Bough Breaks"

In anthropology, we watched a segment from "Unnatural Causes" about premature births and low birth rates in African Americans. A study done showed, fairly convincingly, that premature births and low birth rates are the result here, not as much of socioeconomic class, health, or intelligence, but stress due to living in continual racism. The statistics between African American women and white women are not explained well enough by the difference in socioeconomic class (poor whites do better than middle class blacks, if I'm recalling the fact correctly - it's something very similar to that, in any case). African American women with a college degree, healthy lifestyle, upper-class career, and good, supportive family are still incredibly likely to give birth early or to a tiny baby. They looked at what stress does in pregnancy. There's also increasing attention to "life course" theories, stating that the health of the baby is impacted by the entirety of the mother's life, not just the stuff occurring during the birth.