Helping Black mothers

V.S. North senior earns grant funding for research into preterm births

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“I was a preterm baby because I was born one month earlier than expected, and now, 17 years later, I’m trying to find out through my research project if preterm birth is linked to certain stress factors in African-American women,” Valley Stream North High senior Ahmya McMillan said.

Taking that experience, three years ago, McMillan, who is Black, decided to look into the phenomenon of preterm births among African-American mothers in the United States, and in January, her study, “The Association Between Father Presence and Support, Neighborhood Environment and Preterm Birth in African American Women,” was awarded a New York Institute of Technology mini-research grant of $300 to help continue the project.

McMillan said she was shocked and overjoyed at how well her research was received, particularly because of her personal investment in the subject matter. “It hits close to home,” she said.

McMillan began planning her project during her sophomore year for her Authentic Science Research Program class. The elective is a three-year course that allows students, beginning in sophomore year, to pick a topic, develop a hypothesis and work closely with a mentor to research the subject.

For her project, McMillan examined whether three environmental stress variables could be linked to an increase in preterm births among African-American mothers, including:

1. If an African-American mother has had contact with her biological father.

2. If she has had contact with the father of her unborn baby.

3. If she lives in a neighborhood with high eviction rates.

If mothers lacked contact with both their own fathers and the fathers of their children, and lived in areas with high eviction rates, McMillan hypothesized, it might increase their chances of giving birth to their babies prematurely.

“Researchers do predict that stress can cause preterm birth, so we picked African-American women because they tend to encounter these stresses more than their white counterparts,” McMillan said. “Even though I grew up in a household with both my parents who raised me, my mom grew up in a single-parent household, and I also have many Black friends that are growing up in single-parent households, so I know this affects my fellow Black community, and through my project I want to do everything in my power to help.” 

Roughly 64 percent of Black children in America lived in a single-parent household in 2019, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a research non-profit that focuses on at-risk children across the country. This was compared to 42 percent of Hispanic or Latino children and 24 percent of white and non-Hispanic children living in single-parent households. 

For her research, McMillan worked with Dr. Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson, of the Social Epidemiology to Eliminate Disparities Lab at Ohio State University. Together, they used data collected from “The life Cohort Study,” which Sealy-Jefferson was a part of, for which researchers surveyed women across the country about stress levels and environmental factors. The two looked at the data to find commonalities among Black women in relation to the three stress variables in McMillan’s hypothesis.  

“We expect to see that if all three variables play a role in an African-American mother’s life, they will be more likely to have a preterm baby,” McMillan said. “There’s always a chance that my expected results might not be the outcome, but it’s important that we still put the research out there because maybe one day someone else can take my research and evolve it and make it into something that can ultimately lead to helping African-American women.” 

“This project is important because it focuses on a segment of our population that has been made vulnerable to multiple oppressions, and seeks to uncover new knowledge about risk and protective factors for a long-standing public health issue,” Sealy-Jefferson said, noting that the causes of the increased risk of preterm birth in Black women still have not been clearly identified. “This research project is timely and novel and could give us important insights into unique experiences that Black women have that lead to or protect against preterm birth.”

McMillan also credited Authentic Science Research teacher Michael Frazer with helping and guiding her to persevere while working on her project.

Frazer said that, once her project is complete, McMillan will submit her findings at the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair, and she will present them at a science symposium for North seniors at the end of the year.

“Regardless of what university Ahmya ends up in after graduation, and whether she continues research in this field or not, her work ethic and positive attitude indicate to me that she will be very successful and she will make a positive impact in our society,” he said.

McMillan said she hopes researchers pick up her study and expand on it, because the outcome could lead to more advanced mental, physical, psychological and gynecological health programs to help pregnant African-American women and decrease premature births among them.

Although McMillan has yet to decide which college she will attend next fall, she has been accepted to nearly a dozen. She hopes to study law and eventually attend law school. She also hopes to continue conducting various research projects throughout her college years.  

“I have realized just how crucial and important research is,” she said. “I hope that in my future, I can help people who can’t help themselves by advocating for them.”