Today is the last day of Black Maternal Health Week here in the U.S. It is 2024 and it shouldn’t be something that requires a separate awareness day, but it is. The history of Black people and healthcare has not been great. There were men with syphilis who thought they were getting medical help, but were only getting a placebo (The Tuskegee Experiment). Also, the stealing cells that has made many vaccinations possible without permission (Henrietta Lacks). With it being Black Maternal Health week, let’s start by speaking the names of some women who have lost their lives as a result of disparities in our system.
an Olympic Track and Field star who died in her home along with her baby when she was eight months pregnant. An autopsy showed she died from respiratory distress and eclampsia
a Pediatric Doctor who passed away two days after giving birth to her first child. She delivered her daughter one month early following a preclampsia diagnosis. After, she had a ruptured liver, high blood pressure, and malfunctioning kidneys following birth. She required surgery, but she lost the battle.
a young woman excited about having her first child. She was pass her due date, when she went into the hospital to induce her labor. After given the drugs and an epidural, the baby’s heart rate began to drop and then Sha-asia went into cardiac arrest during the emergency C-section. She passed away shortly after.
a mother of 2 children before going in for an emergency C-section for her 3rd child. Following this she was hemorrhaging internally and sadly passed away.
a soon to be first time mother, who died from blood clots while in labor. While in labor, nurses waited too long to call her doctor, would not give her water, and her legs started swelling before she began vomiting and stopped breathing. The maternity ward of the hospital involved was shut down soon after.
birthed her second child with an emergency C-section and after died from internal bleeding. She went many hours not getting a CT scan after blood was discovered in her catheter tube by her husband.
a Nurse Practitioner by trade who was familiar with high mortality as it relates to Black woman and childbirth. Towards the end of her pregnancy, she became much more fatigued and brought this to the attention of her doctor who brushed it off as a normal pregnancy thing. She died shortly after an emergency C-section. Her autopsy showed she died from pregnancy fatty liver.
For Black mother’s, the concerns are a little different because you’re fighting for your unborn child as well as yourself. With so many deaths in the last few years, the time is now to raise hell if you have to. Advocacy in healthcare whether or not you are having a child is very important. Our voice is powerful and can be even greater if we had someone speaking alongside us. By continuing to spread the message of this issue, I hope to see these numbers improve very soon.