✍🏾: @callmedr.c
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another 50,000 people each year have unexpected labor and delivery outcomes with serious short or long-term health consequences
Serena Williams penned an essay for @ElleUSA’s April issue, not only recounting the trauma she incurred after delivering her first child, but urging medical professionals to listen to a slack women.
Williams highlighted that Black women are still, three times more likely to die after giving birth than white women.
Per the #CDC – significant disparities are noted in the birthing experience of Black women in its most recent report, citing the statistic of Black women being 3x more likely to essentially not make it back home after bringing life earthside. Factors contributing, but are not limited to: Inequality in healthcare, underlying chronic conditions, implicit bias as well as structural and institutional racism.
Williams stated her nightmare began shortly after giving birth to her daughter, #AlexisOlympia. She was at risk, high risk, for blood clots and communicated that to the staff. Their response? Telling her “we don’t really know if that’s what you need to be on right now…” and she felt no one was actually listening to her.
After moving through being unable to cough, difficulty breathing and busting her stitches open, it wasn’t until four surgeries later that a blood clot was discovered in one of her arteries, a hematoma in her abdomen and various clots. Before that, when she voiced her concerns, it was put off on her meds “making her crazy” she wrote in her essay.
Imagine had she not advocated for herself. Had she not known her body or even paid attention to the symptoms she was experienced… The world could have lost one of its greatest athletes to negligence.
Like many Black women entrusting their lives to the hands of medical professionals, Williams said that “being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me…I know those statistics would be different if the medical establishment listened to every Black Women’s experience.”
Don’t be afraid to speak up, Queens! #BWLM💕
