Athlete Or Not, Black Maternal Mortality Doesn’t Discriminate

Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. That’s a somber reality too many ignore or overlook.

But not the Black Mamas Matter Alliance.

The organization founded Black Maternal Health Week, which runs April 11^th – 17^th, to “build awareness, activism, and community-building to amplify the voices, perspectives and lived experiences of Black Mamas and birthing people.”

They bring much-needed attention to the disparities in pregnancy-related deaths between Black and white women, factors which include variations in the quality of healthcare received, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit bias.

While some vehemently deny that structural racism exists and that even individual doctors hold internal biases against Black women, maternal mortality rates do not lie.

The death of U.S. sprinter and Olympic Gold Medalist Tori Bowie last month testifies to this.

On Friday, May 2^nd, while conducting a welfare check, police found Bowie, 32, dead in her Florida home.

In the autopsy revealed on Monday, we learned that Bowie died due to pregnancy complications. The Florida Orange County Medical Examiner’s Offices stated that Bowie was approximately eight months pregnant and in active labor at the time of her death, but that she died of natural causes. Medical officials stated that potential complications include respiratory distress and eclampsia, which occurs when someone develops seizures following a sudden spike in high blood pressure during pregnancy.

Unfortunately, in addition to being three times more likely to experience pregnancy-related death than white women, Black women are more likely to experience preventable maternal death compared to white women as well.

Black Women & Maternal Health

Black women experience more maternal health complications than white women throughout the course of their pregnancies including benign tumors that grow in the uterus and cause postpartum hemorrhaging known as fibroids. Black women also display signs of preeclampsia earlier in pregnancy than white women.

Despite these facts, pregnant Black women continue to suffer and die unnecessarily.

In 2017, tennis phenom Serena Williams had to have an emergency cesarean section when her daughter’s heart rate became dangerously slow during her labor. The following day, after giving birth to Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., Williams was short of breath. She had experienced blood clots in the past and knew she was in trouble, yet her requests went unheeded.

In a 2018 interview with Vogue, Williams said she requested a CT scan and heparin, but the nurse decided that Williams wasn’t thinking straight because she was on pain medication. Williams then asked for a doctor, who performed a leg ultrasound deemed to be normal.

But Williams insisted that she be given a CT scan and heparin.

She was finally taken seriously, and the imaging revealed deadly blood clots in her lungs which required life-saving surgery and six weeks of bed rest. Serena Williams shared her traumatic experience as well as her struggles with postpartum depression on Instagram, revealing a struggle Black women face that is so often hidden from the larger world.

In 2019, track and field superstar Allyson Felix also opened up about her 2018 pregnancy scare where she too underwent an emergency C-section at 32 weeks because of severe pre-eclampsia that threatened the lives of her and her child. While struggling with this life-threatening health issue, she was also navigating a contract dispute with Nike who wanted to pay her 70 percent less than before because pregnancy at the time was “the kiss of death,” in her industry.

Celebrity status did not protect Williams or Felix from the life-threatening complications associated with Black maternal health, nor did celebrity shield Felix from the potential loss of income.

Black maternal mortality is very real to those of us who live it and see it among our friends and family members. To the rest of our anti-Black society, what’s one more dead Black woman?

That the maternal mortality rates of Black women in the US do not mirror the wealth of our nation manifests the power of anti-Blackness, anti-Black racism, and misogynoir.

When Tori Bowie died, everyone was shocked. That an Olympic and World champion, and the pride of Mississippi, could fall off the radar and die in her home alone due to pregnancy complications is heartbreaking.

Serena Williams, despite her demands, was ignored to the point where she almost lost her life due to complications related to childbirth. Though we don’t know the exact circumstances behind Bowie’s situation, we do know that she died while laboring alone, possibly from preventable complications.

Many still operate under defunct assumptions about Black women and the medical field, where women’s health was built on the exploitation and mutilation of enslaved Black women. Dr. James Marion Sims, the so-called “father of modern gynecology,” performed experiments on enslaved Black women in Alabama whom he leased. These crude experiments conducted without anesthesia were intended to repair vesicovaginal fistulae.

Black Strength and Pain

For generations, misconceptions about a lack of Black pain have been circulated and reified. It remains embedded within the subconsciousness of many, even those who are sworn to “do no harm.”

Would Serena Williams have been heard or taken more seriously sooner if the nurses and doctors around her believed that she was in pain, that she was capable of feeling pain in the same way that they feel pain? Most definitely.

Unfortunately, far too many people don’t believe that Black people feel pain in the same manner as everyone else. Or that we are human in the same ways. When sociologist Dr. Tressie McMillian Cottom was going through her own birthing experience, “He glared at me and said if I wasn’t quiet he would leave me and I would not get any pain relief.”

A threat and a promise rolled into one ugly statement.

It will be a long time before I can stop thinking about Tori Bowie and wondering why she was all alone, laboring, and dying. Where was her village? Why did it take days before someone noticed that she was missing? There are still so many missing pieces to this story.

Yet the piece that is very clear is that Black women die far too often from pregnancy-related complications that are preventable.

Black Mamas Matter works to promote human rights, reproductive justice, and birth justice frameworks while also incorporating respectful maternity care tenets. The alliance recognizes that maternal mortality and morbidity is not just a US concern, but a global one.

Black women are dying.

Black academics are dying and or coming close to death.

Black athletes are dying or coming close to death.

Black women deserve better than reaching the point of dying or dying alone in their homes. They deserve to be heard as well as believed at all stages of the pregnancy process.

Celebrity status doesn’t matter when it comes to Black maternal mortality. Education and income don’t matter either. As Dr. Cottom stated, “All of my status characteristics screamed ‘competent,’ but nothing could shut down what my blackness screams when I walk into the room.”

In a society where anti-Blackness is king, Blackness screams incompetent regardless of the last name or athletic accomplishments.

It’s time we do better for Black women. They deserve better.

According to the CDC, more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable. The maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2021 was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, nearly three times (2.6) the rate for white women, with rates increasing with maternal age.

This is why organizations such as Black Mama’s Matter, Black Maternal Health Week and efforts to bring attention to these disparities and create significant change are so crucial.

What happened to Williams, Felix, Bowie, and Cottom should not have happened. Recognizing the humanity of Black women should.

Giving birth should not be a game of Russian roulette rigged against Black women with a single empty chamber.