While participating in a Maternal Health Awareness Day program recently (follow #123forMOMs on social media), I had the opportunity to listen to Wanda Irving speak about the death of her daughter, Shalon Irving, PhD, who had given birth three weeks earlier. Her death was preventable. Despite several attempts at seeking care, she died from complications due to hypertension. I became overwhelmed and began to cry, feeling fortunate that I was in the privacy of my office and could attend virtually.
My tears kept flowing, and I allowed myself to be sad for this mother’s experience, to grieve for her daughter and to grieve as a mother of two Black women. Dr. Irving had the advantages of higher education, a stellar career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, good insurance and a support system, yet this was not enough to secure her survival.
Access to healthcare and education doesn’t protect against poor outcomes. A 2016 analysis conducted in New York City, using five years of data, found that Black, college-educated mothers who gave birth in local hospitals were more likely to suffer severe complications of pregnancy or childbirth than white women who never graduated from high school. This finding highlights how profound racial inequities are, and as a Black birthing person, I fear and worry about the care my daughters will receive because of the color of their skin.
Our current Black maternal mortality statistics are staggering in a country of wealth, in a nation built on the backs of Black people. The CDC reports that Black mothers in the U.S. die at three to four times the rate of white mothers, one of the widest racial disparities in women's health. A Black woman is 22% more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman and 71% more likely to die from cervical cancer, but 243% more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes.
It is appalling that there continues to be disparities in healthcare on all levels. The COVID-19 pandemic brought this out in many ways—one example was seen in the vaccination distribution and administration.
We recently observed Black History Month, a reminder to become functionally literate in the conversation about the history of Black people in this country and structural racism. We must become antiracist and acknowledge how Black people feel to begin to improve the healthcare provided and received. We encourage our leaders and institutions to be accountable by maintaining a diverse workforce in healthcare to deliver unbiased care to all people, including those who are disadvantaged just by the color of their skin, where stereotypes will dictate how they are treated when they are seeking healthcare.
For far too long, the burden to end racism has been placed on those most impacted. As leaders of academic medical institutions, we must critically examine our policies, procedures and systems, then identify all manifestations of systemic racism and dismantle these practices. Diverse leadership matters, and according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, “it is time to amplify opportunities to promote more Black, Indigenous and people of color into leadership positions and validate and respect their authority.”
We encourage our leaders and institutions to be accountable, maintaining a diverse workforce in healthcare to deliver an unbiased quality of care to all people, including those who are disadvantaged just by the color of their skin, where stereotypes will dictate how one is treated when presenting for healthcare.
Editor’s Note: Please read our recent blog post “Black Maternal Healthcare: A First-Person Perspective,” by Stacey-Ann Okoth, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, for additional insight on this topic.
Juana Hutchinson-Colas, MD, is associate professor, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences/division chief, female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, N.J. She is also a 2022 Thomas C. Dolan Executive Diversity Program Scholar.