Viral video shows how medicine needs to do better by Black pregnant women
The video, in which a nurse berates a pregnant woman, illustrates the shameful state of this country's treatment of Black people during pregnancy.
The medical advancements of this day and age are astounding. New cancer therapies that target only cancer cells are keeping people alive, a pill can prevent people from becoming infected with HIV, and we can even print body parts using 3D printers.
But in some aspects of medical care, it feels like we haven’t made any progress in decades. I’m talking about the shameful mortality rate of pregnant Black women.
African Americans are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than their white counterparts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This statistic is appalling but easy to gloss over. It’s just a number; what does it actually mean? How is it that so many Black pregnant women die in this day and age?
» READ MORE: In viral video, a Philly nurse berates an expectant mother for asking for a doctor’s note to take off work
The answers to those questions may lie in the kind of moment that was captured recently by a Black woman from Delaware County who thought to film an interaction that went awry at a medical facility.
My jaw dropped the first time I watched the now-viral video in which the woman was seeking a doctor’s note authorizing an excused absence from work during the last two months of her pregnancy because of extreme pain. At one point, the nurse, an employee at the Philly Pregnancy Center, asks, “What were you thinking about when you got pregnant? That you were not going to work? I’m just curious because I’ve had three kids and I worked up until the second they were born.”
The patient responds, “But am I you? Are you me? Do you know how I feel?”
It gets worse, as the nurse accuses the woman of lying and attempting to commit fraud.
I was stunned.
The woman has retained a lawyer, Briana Lynn Pearson, who said that her client was a victim of racial discrimination and deserves “a public apology and so much more.” Pearson would not provide her client’s last name and only identified her as Jill.
An Inquirer reporter attempted to contact the Philly Pregnancy Center for comment but got no response. I’ve also reached out to the center but did not hear anything back.
» READ MORE: America’s maternal mortality crisis traces back to Philadelphia
The video called to mind articles that I’ve read recently in The Inquirer and elsewhere about how the maternal death rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation. In Philadelphia, the problem is especially acute. Black people had 43% of births from 2013 to 2018 but accounted for 73% of pregnancy-related deaths, according to the city’s health department.
Even the monied class isn’t immune. Tennis great Serena Williams had to advocate for herself after experiencing life-threatening complications following the birth of her daughter, Olympia. Williams had a history of blood clots and was forced to repeatedly ask for an appropriate treatment plan from medical personnel, without which she could have died. She is one of the most famous people in the world, but in that moment, she was one of the many Black women whose concerns are routinely dismissed.
“For every viral video, there are countless other Black patients whose stories are silenced through coercion, settlement, or death,” Hannah Litchfield, a spokesperson for New Voices for Reproductive Justice, told me in an email. “This is A VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS.”
Although many people in our area are, like me, shocked by the recent viral video, Black women who’ve been fighting for more awareness around their treatment during pregnancy weren’t as surprised by the interaction.
Christine Eley, a certified doula and childbirth educator, told me she experienced something similar when she was pregnant at 22, and her doctor asked what she intended to do with her baby.
“She said, ‘You don’t plan on keeping this baby, right?’” recalled Eley, who founded the Germantown-based Womb-ish, which stands for Womb Intensive Systematic Holistic Care, three years ago.
“I was just completely shocked that that was even a question ... because I was a Black single mother, [she] was under the assumption that I did not want this pregnancy,” Eley told me. “It’s very disheartening to feel put down during our times when we should be uplifted, when we should be empowered. Unfortunately, it’s just the opposite for a lot of Black and brown women.”
There are so many reasons why Black women are more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes, but the Philly Pregnancy Center video posted on TikTok highlights a major one: implicit bias among health-care providers, which can cause some to dismiss or minimize Black women’s reports of pain or discomfort.
It’s unconscionable that we still have to talk about situations like this in 2022. But until disparities in treatment of Black pregnant women are addressed, these discussions must continue.