SPECIAL ISSUE: HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
Words - Ariana Mygatt

This is our first ever special issue. The goal of special issues of Womanly Magazine is to more closely target a specific health crisis and provide the most accessible and direct information we can to help communities that need it. We have chosen to focus this first special issue on the topic of high blood pressure in the city of Baltimore. According to the Baltimore City Health Department, heart disease is the number one cause of death and stroke is the third, both of which can be consequences of high blood pressure. Womanly’s mission with this issue is to help readers understand the causes of high blood pressure and offer tips to prevent, control, and treat it. We hope that the information in this magazine will equip you with the information you need to make decisions about your heart health, advocate for yourself, and get the care you need.

In this issue, you will see visual and literary art produced by artists and writers in Baltimore and other communities battling hypertension. We have also partnered with the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) MFA in Illustration Practice to create art and visual aids for the issue. The following students collaborated on the illustrations you will find accompanying our “Need To Know” information: 

Jordan Cannon
Paloma Diaz-Dickson
Sarah Etherton
Lexi Nilson
Lee Price
Stella Wei
Dongyan Xu
Haochen Zhao
David Zhou
Yuanyuan Zhou

Please share the link to this special issue with someone else who might need it. And for more accessible information on topics including nutrition, stress, heart health, sexual education, and Black maternal health, check out our past issues here.