Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is doubling down on the case she made at the She the People Presidential Forum last month that doctors’ and nurses’ “prejudice” makes them treat black women differently than white women when it comes to maternal health treatment.
“We have failed our babies exactly in the way you talk about,” Warren said at the forum, then went on to say that those failures affect all black women regardless of their education or income.
“And the best studies that I’m seeing put it down to just one thing — prejudice,” Warren said. “That doctors and nurses don’t hear African-American women’s medical issues the same way that they hear the same things from white women.”
Unfortunately, despite decades of progress, roughly 700 women continue to die each year from pregnancy or delivery complications in the United States, making it one of only thirteen countries where maternal mortality rates have worsened over the last 25 years. We are facing a maternal mortality crisis in America.
And for Black moms, particularly those living in rural areas, it’s an epidemic.
The data shows that black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. This trend persists even after adjusting for income and education. One major reason? Racism. In a detailed report, ProPublica found that the vast majority of maternal deaths are preventable, but decades of racism and discrimination mean that, too often, doctors and nurses don’t hear Black women’s health issues the same way they hear them from other women.
Warren than laid out her plan to help stop the alleged racism taking place in hospitals or other venues where black babies are born. – READ MORE