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Racial Disparities in Maternal Health
Maternal mortality is three to four times higher for Black mothers than white women in the United States. Infant mortality for infants born to non-Hispanic Black mothers is also twice as high as for infants born to non-Hispanic white mothers. There are also racial disparities for negative birth outcomes like preterm birth and low birth weight, which influences risk of infant mortality and developmental outcomes after birth. Across all women, older maternal age is associated with higher rates of birth outcomes, but studies have consistently found that these rates deteriorate more rapidly for Black women than White women. The weathering hypothesis proposes that the accumulation of racial stress over Black women's lives contributes to these observed patterns of racial disparities that increase with maternal age. Research has consistently identified an association between preterm birth and low birth weight in Black women and maternal stress caused by experiences of racism, socioeconomic disadvantage, segregated neighborhoods, and high rates of violent crime. The weathering hypothesis is also supported by the finding that Black women have shorter telomeres, a biological indicator of age, when compared with white women of the same chronological age. Though increased socioeconomic status serves as a protective factor against negative birth outcomes for non-Hispanic white mothers, disproportionate rates of preterm birth and low birth weight for non-Hispanic Black mothers have been found at every education and income level. This may also be explained through the weathering hypothesis because upward mobility is associated with increased exposure to discrimination among women of color.

There is modest evidence supporting the presence of weathering for mothers of other minority groups, including for high birth weight outcomes among American Indian/Alaska Native women. Research has started to explore whether the weathering hypothesis could also be used to account for racial disparities in the outcomes of assisted reproductive technologies, but so far the findings are inconsistent.

Criticism and Related Theories
Arline Geronimus faced significant pushback for the weathering hypothesis, including from members of the medical community who believed there was a genetic or evolutionary explanation for racial differences in health outcomes. Others pushed back against the weathering hypothesis because its application to racial disparities in maternal health seemed to contradict what advocacy groups had been saying about the negative consequences of teen pregnancy on young mothers. A further criticism of this theory believes that Geronimus and others have not sufficiently demonstrated a link between weathering and racial and gender disparities in life expectancy.

The weathering hypothesis was initially proposed as a sociological theory, but it is closely related to biological theories like the allostatic load model, which proposes that an individual's exposure to repeated or chronic stress over their lifetime has physiological consequences which can be measured through various biomarkers.