What to expect when you're expecting racism
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Across the internet, women are sharing their experiences with the physical and emotional difficulties of pregnancy. But for Black women, the complications, negative health outcomes, and even death are more common. Today, Brittany is joined by Dr. Khiara Bridges, Earl Warren professor of public law at UC Berkeley School of Law and author of Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans to talk through why wealth and status can't outrun racism at the doctor's office.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One thing I've seen more and more of on my feed, and I'm guessing you might have seen this too. |
| 0:06.0 | It's something kind of eye-opening. |
| 0:08.0 | People talking openly about the realities of pregnancy and childbirth. |
| 0:13.0 | Skin text everywhere. |
| 0:15.0 | I literally told my husband I don't want to have another baby because I'm scared I'm actually going to lose teeth this time. |
| 0:20.0 | I could wiggle my teeth when I was pregnant with my tongue. Being pregnant is not beautiful. It is so painful. I want |
| 0:27.3 | you all to see what pelvic pain looks like. I am glad we're having that conversation. |
| 0:33.3 | Pregnancy comes with a lot of side effects and risks, and these risks aren't distributed equally. |
| 0:39.7 | You might already know how complications, negative health outcomes, and even death are more common for black mothers. |
| 0:47.3 | The black maternal mortality rate is three times higher than it is for white mothers. |
| 0:53.0 | An estimated 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States |
| 0:57.1 | are preventable, according to the CDC. But what's causing black mothers to die more of these |
| 1:03.3 | preventable deaths is racism. There are racist cultural ideas that get baked into our health care |
| 1:09.5 | system. And my guest today found that |
| 1:11.7 | even if black parents throw everything they've got, status, money, respectability, you name it, |
| 1:18.0 | at making pregnancy and delivery go smoothly, they can't always outrun racism. To get into it, |
| 1:25.5 | I'm here with Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at UC Berkeley School of Law and friend of the show, Dr. Kiara Bridges. |
| 1:32.8 | Kiara, welcome back to It's Been a Minute. |
| 1:34.8 | It's so good to be back. Thanks for having me. |
| 1:39.6 | Hello, hello. I'm Brittany loose and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. |
| 1:56.0 | So we are here today to discuss your book that just came out this year called Expecting Inequity, |
| 2:02.0 | how the maternal health crisis affects even the wealthiest black Americans. |
... |
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