The nation’s health disparities have had a tragic impact: Over the past two decades, the higher mortality rate among Black Americans resulted in 1.6 million excess deaths compared to white Americans. That higher mortality rate resulted in a cumulative loss of more than 80 million years of life due to people dying young and billions of dollars in health care and lost opportunity.
For decades, frustrated birth advocates and medical professionals have tried to sound an alarm about the ways medicine has failed Black women. Historians trace that maltreatment to racist medical practices that Black people endured amid and after slavery.
The disparities between Black and white babies is stark: The infant mortality rate in 2021 for white mothers was 5.8, while the infant mortality rate for Black mothers was 12.1, an increase from 10.9 from the prior year.
Black babies account for just 29% of births in Alabama, yet nearly 47% of infant deaths.
A 2020 report by the Alabama Maternal Mortality Review Committee found that more than 55% of 80 pregnancy-related deaths that they reviewed in 2016 and 2017 could have been prevented.
I remember that there’s a trick you can use to force medical officials to do their jobs. Basically, if they refuse to offer you treatment, you tell them you want that refusal in writing, so if anything happens to you as a result of their negligence, they can be held liable for it. They tend to be a lot more accommodating when they know they could be charged with malpractice.
Doctors don’t take women seriously. Doctors don’t take black patients seriously. Being a black woman is like drawing the losing lottery ticket in terms of healthcare in the US. I’m glad it’s at least getting a little bit of attention.
