Going beyond statistics to end life-threatening racism in maternal care
In July 2019, Erica Chidi called a friend, Stanford obstetrician Erica Cahill, MD, to ask for her help with an important project.
Chidi, a sexual and reproductive health educator, aimed to help other Black women who feared for their health in childbirth. Today, the United States is the riskiest wealthy nation in which to give birth, with Black women facing especially heightened risks of death and devastating complications.
The overall U.S. rate of maternal deaths is more than triple what’s seen in other wealthy countries and three times higher among Black than white women. Severe birth complications are rising, affecting more than 1 in every 100 births, with race playing a big role in who is most vulnerable.
“I was pretty frustrated because all I was seeing around the issue was statistical, situational reporting. There weren’t any interventions being coupled with the reporting,” said Los Angeles-based Chidi, who is the CEO of an online women’s health education startup, LOOM, and a former doula, or support person for women in labor.
The New York Times had recently given her the go-ahead to write a guide for how pregnant Black women could work with their doctors to lower their risk of complications.
“Erica and I talked,” said Cahill, clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and Chidi told her, “I have friends and colleagues coming up to me, saying, ‘We see all this very terrifying data; what do we do about it?’ I have nothing to give them.”
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