I almost died in childbirth.
As a college freshman, I learned I was pregnant during a physical while attempting to enlist in the U.S. Navy. Eight months later, when I arrived at the hospital to deliver my baby, the attending physician examined me and reacted with visible disgust.
He raised his voice and told me my baby would be “too small,” as though my young Black body had already failed to meet his expectations. As my labor progressed, I repeatedly said something was wrong, but my concerns were dismissed, and I was left alone in a barren room.
I still recall the look on my husband’s face when he entered the dimly lit room where I lay alone that day. He later described it as resembling “a murder scene.” Blood had pooled on the floor beneath me, yet no one checked on me. I was abandoned until he arrived.
Two days later, I delivered a healthy baby girl who weighed almost eight pounds. I left the hospital in severe physical pain. It was later determined that I had an undiagnosed broken coccyx, an injury that went unnoticed because my symptoms and complaints had not been taken seriously.
That was 42 years ago, and my experience in the delivery room remains vivid and relevant. Today, I understand my experience was not isolated. Black mothers are still too often ignored, questioned and placed at unnecessary risk.
I was reminded of these moments earlier this week, when the White House announced its action plan to address maternal health issues. The government website, moms.gov, is supposed to provide “resources, information, and help for new and expecting mothers.” Yet there is no mention of addressing the mortality crisis faced by the millions of women who look like me.
Recently, Rep. Summer Lee (D-Penn.) challenged Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on how anti-DEI policies could set back critical research into Black maternal mortality. She argued that the crisis will continue if policymakers refuse to acknowledge the specific disparities Black mothers face, while Kennedy responded by placing a broad “everybody is included” blanket over the issue instead of directly addressing how his department will specifically protect Black women, who remain at greater risk than any other race.
Black women in the United States remain far more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes, even though most of those deaths are preventable. Even as maternal death rates began to decline nationwide in 2023, Black women were still more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes as white women, revealing how little has changed in the unequal realities of maternal healthcare.
Photo Courtesy Of Janice Robinson-Celeste
High-profile stories have drawn attention to this crisis. Serena Williams shared her life-threatening complications after medical staff initially dismissed her concerns. Earlier this year, Kashena Manuel delivered her son in a Texas hospital bathroom after reportedly being ignored while in active labor. More recently, Janell Green Smith, a nurse-midwife dedicated to maternal health, died less than a week after giving birth. Their stories reflect what many Black women experience without headlines or national attention.
What is discussed far less often is that these experiences do not end with one generation. My eldest daughter, the child I nearly lost my life bringing into the world, is now an adult. When it came time for her to give birth, she chose to have both of her children at home, with a doula’s support. Her decision was rooted in fear that a hospital would not listen to or protect her.
My youngest daughter could have died after childbirth when she developed a spinal headache caused by an epidural puncture that was overlooked as she was sent home from the hospital. She later fainted at home before being rushed back to the emergency room.
Now, as another daughter hopes to become pregnant soon, I find myself carrying that fear forward. I worry about her safety in a biased and racist system that continues to produce unequal outcomes. At times, I have even wished that she could give birth in another country, where the risks are lower.
Photo Courtesy Of Janice Robinson-Celeste
Some will argue that hospitals are safe places. But laws such as the WELLS Act, named after a Black mother who was repeatedly refused care, and the Momnibus Act, a package of bills designed to address maternal health disparities, exist because hospitals have not consistently protected Black mothers. Legislation matters, but it does not erase human bias or the lived fear many Black women carry into childbirth.
No mother intends to pass her fears down to her daughters, yet for many Black moms, the fear of maternal mortality is grounded in real life and supported by data that cannot be ignored. My hope is that future generations will inherit something different: a protective healthcare system that, without question, listens, responds and values Black women’s lives and their infants’ lives.
Janice Robinson-Celeste is a former educator and the founder of Successful Black Parenting Magazine, a multi-award-winning publication that empowers Black families. She is a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project, in partnership with the National Black Child Development Institute.
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