The Black Maternal Mortality Crisis and Why It Remains an Issue
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 July 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
According to a new study published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association – maternal death rates remain the highest among Black women, and those high rates have more than doubled over the last twenty years.
When compared to white women, Black women are more than twice as likely to experience severe pregnancy-related complications, and nearly three times as likely to die. And that increased rate of death has remained about the same since the U.S. began tracking maternal mortality rates nationally — in the 1930s.
We trace the roots of these health disparities back to the 18th century to examine how racism influenced science and medicine - and contributed to medical stereotypes about Black people that still exist today.
And NPR's Scott Detrow speaks with Karen Sheffield-Abdullah, a nurse midwife and professor of nursing at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, about how to improve maternal health outcomes for Black women.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I have two little stinky little boys. I say that lovingly. |
| 0:11.3 | Eden, eight, and Asher, two. |
| 0:14.6 | Anna Rodney is 38 years old and lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her sons. |
| 0:19.3 | She says she always imagined the birth of her first child would be beautiful, which |
| 0:22.9 | she considered a very natural thing. |
| 0:24.8 | I wanted to have a home birth. I wanted to have a water birth. I'm a hippie. I used to |
| 0:29.6 | use my friends. I leave me alone. I'm going to just go to the woods and get birth to my son. |
| 0:34.5 | That didn't happen. |
| 0:36.6 | During her pregnancy, Rodney had life-threatening blood clots in her left leg. She says she |
| 0:43.7 | repeatedly told doctors about her symptoms and was repeatedly ignored. |
| 0:48.6 | That didn't change until a friend who was a nurse went with her to the hospital and demanded |
| 0:53.2 | that Rodney be admitted. After she delivered her son by C-section, internal bleeding led |
| 0:58.7 | to an emergency surgery. Weeks later, her incision site became infected. |
| 1:03.9 | Rodney says that even though the pain was so intense that she could barely walk, the doctor |
| 1:08.5 | checked the scar and said she was fine. The next day, she went back to the ER and was |
| 1:13.4 | admitted with an aggressive infection. And while all of this was happening to her, her son |
| 1:18.1 | Eden was also struggling for his life. |
| 1:20.9 | He was born at 28 weeks. |
| 1:22.7 | Her son was one pound, five ounces when he was born. |
| 1:25.8 | We spent about six months in a queue. |
| 1:28.0 | Rodney spoke to NPR producer Brianna Scott. She says she hoped when she gave birth that |
| 1:31.8 | it would be a partnership between her and the medical staff. But that wasn't the case. |
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