Lost Mothers: High Pregnancy Related Deaths Among Black Women
Problem Statement
According to the CDC, about 700 women die a year as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications, and the large percentage of women who lose their lives are black. For a long time, health care professionals believed this problem only affected lower-class black women; however, in recent years, it has become apparent this disparity affects all black women. Today, black women experience a higher pregnancy-related mortality ratio (PRMR) than any other racial/ethnic group of women. In addition to this, black women experience more maternal health complications than white women, including preeclampsia and fibroids. Closely looking at these statistics and stories show personal deaths. But when one pulls back to look at the bigger picture, an emerging and concerning public health crisis is exposed.
Point from Causal Analysis
For decades, healthcare professionals and researchers blamed the alarming rate of pregnancy-related mortality incidences on black women, essentially blaming them for a situation they had no control over. The uncritical belief that the medical field is neutral and that healthcare providers treat all patients the same causes doctors and nurses to refuse to look and reflect on their own actions and reports. In fact, medicinal history shows us that not all mothers are treated equally. From the atrocities of slavery to the Civil Rights movement to fighting for Black Lives Matter today, African Americans always had to prove their skin color did not make them any different from their oppressors. Historically, it is the relationship between the dominant group, white European colonists, and the non-dominant group, native Africans that led to the belief that black and white people are fundamentally and biologically different. Respective to this belief, experimentation on black bodies was justified for centuries. For example, James Marion Sims, a surgeon during the 19th century, pioneered several reproductive health techniques at the cost of enslaved women. Because history only shows the audience these studies’ accomplishments and not the suffering of African American men and women, inaccurate beliefs on how black people feel pain persist. When doctors and nurses examine black women's pain, false myths like their nerve endings are less sensitive, that their skin is thicker, or that their blood coagulates more quickly than white people still hold power in their medical reports. When researchers refuse to look at these factors and rather put the blame on a mother's environment, this inequality becomes an 'untreated cancer' in the maternal health setting.
How does the problem connect to social justice and information?
The way doctors and nurses have historically believed and reported how black people feel pain contributes to today's maternal health disparity. This hidden and implicit bias fuels the systematic racism present in the maternal health field.
Point from Causal Analysis
Past medical research and the history of the lived experience of an African American are unintentionally reflected in how we report a black patient's pain. Frequently, two scenarios play out in the maternal health setting that contribute to these alarming rates. First, the doctor recognizes a black patient’s pain but does not properly treat it. Second, the doctor does not recognize their pain in the first place because of false preconceived notions that black people feel less pain than white people. It becomes hypocritical when the maternal health setting declares this racial disparity an epidemic when they refuse to look past the biases rooted in its treatment toward black mothers. The pregnancy-related mortality ratio can only be changed when insightful information on why this persists and how to combat this implicit bias is shared. If the maternal health setting truly wants to reduce mortality rates among black mothers, they have to stop viewing their patients as black and white but rather ‘human’.
