
U.S. black mothers die more in childbirth. Sen. Kamala Harris aims to change that.
The United States is the most dangerous country to give birth in the developed world, according to a USA Today investigation. It’s especially dangerous for black women, who are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy or delivery complications than white women.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has brought attention to black maternal mortality in the past. Harris and 13 other Democrat senators hope to make legislative change with a new bill, the Maternal Care Access and Reducing Emergencies (CARE) Act, introduced last week.
The bill seeks to lessen the racial gap through two grant programs. One provides implicit bias training through health professional training programs, with priority given to obstetrics and gynecology. The other incentivizes states to deliver integrated health care services to pregnant women and new mothers and reduce poor maternal health outcomes, maternal deaths, and racial health disparities.
“We need to speak the uncomfortable truth that when many Black mothers report symptoms or pain to their doctor, they aren’t taken seriously,” Harris tweeted on Aug. 28, directly addressing how bias influences patient-physician communication.
Rates of black maternal morality are high across income and education levels, as well as socioeconomic statuses. They also aren’t fully explained by lack of access to prenatal care or preexisting conditions. Instead, a growing body of research points to racial bias and its resulting stress as key factors.
A 2016 study from the University of Virginia found that at least half of white medical students believed biological myths about black patients; that black people have thicker skin than white people or that black people’s blood coagulates more quickly than white people’s blood. Students with these biases were more likely to recommend less accurate treatment, operating on the misconception that black patients’ bodies were comparatively more resilient.
Serena Williams made headlines last year when she nearly died after an emergency C-section. In a February 2018 cover story for Vogue magazine, the tennis star described how she alerted a nurse that she was having a pulmonary embolism. The nurse told Williams she was probably confused from pain medication. But sure enough, a CT scan revealed blood clots in Williams’ lungs.
“We have a lot of work to do as a nation and I hope my story can inspire a conversation that gets us to close this [racial] gap,” she wrote in a Facebook post about her daughter Olympia’s birth.
Williams fortunately received treatment in time. Shalon Irving — a prominent black epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — did not. She died from complications of hypertension three weeks after giving birth in 2017. In an interview with NPR, her mother Wanda Irving said, “[Shalon] thought they were not paying attention. She did indicate that, yeah, Mom, they never listen to us.”
The Maternal CARE Act is just the tip of the iceberg for advocates who say the effects of medical racism reach beyond pregnancy. American medicine’s racist legacy, starting with experimentation on slaves, has yet to be wholly recognized. But they say the bill’s acknowledgement of implicit bias in healthcare — and its often devastating consequences — is an important first step to health equity.
