ADRIAN MA, HOST:
For Black women who are having babies in this country, here is a scary fact. During childbirth, they die at significantly higher rates than white women. This racial disparity has actually grown worse in recent years, and in one Georgia community, it's got to the point where some women say they're losing trust in local hospitals. NPR's Katia Riddle has more.
KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: When she went to the hospital to have her baby, Jonquette Sanders-White was feeling good.
JONQUETTE SANDERS-WHITE: This is our fourth baby, super excited. She's our baby girl.
RIDDLE: Jonquette works in PR. Her husband is a schoolteacher. At the time, she was 28. The birth did not go so well. The baby was fine, but Jonquette ended up having a C-section and then a hysterectomy.
SANDERS-WHITE: And then after about five hours, you know, my husband's looking at me, kind of talking. You know, they're looking at my belly. It's getting more distended by the second.
RIDDLE: She was hemorrhaging. The doctors and nurses had missed it. Postpartum hemorrhage is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality.
SANDERS-WHITE: All I remember is that nurses and doctors rush into my room, and they're screaming and shouting, and they say, she's crashing, she's crashing. She's dying, she's dying.
RIDDLE: Her organs started shutting down. Here's her husband, Treston White.
TRESTON WHITE: One nurse told me that it wasn't looking good and to be prepared to tell her goodbye.
RIDDLE: Treston says he didn't believe the nurse. He's a man of faith. He didn't think God would take his wife.
WHITE: I couldn't believe it. I had no room for doubt.
RIDDLE: He was right. She came through, but she is now suing the hospital and the practice of surgeons who operated on her. Her complaint alleges she still has serious complications from this event two years later. NPR reached out to attorneys for the doctors and the hospital and did not hear back. Medical records included in the complaint show she was hemorrhaging that day.
Reflecting back, Jonquette says one of the many upsetting things on that day was that she never interacted with a staff member of color.
SANDERS-WHITE: I do think if I was another race or another ethnicity, I think they would have not only been proactive, but I think they would have been a little more quick to react versus waiting until I'm crashing and dying.
RIDDLE: Research shows that race is a contributing factor to maternal mortality rates. Jonquette has been speaking out about her experience. Medical schools have asked her to come talk to their residents. She's also been vocal in her community. A friend of hers, Deiera Bennett, says the story has shaken her trust in doctors.
DEIERA BENNETT: Because I am a Black woman, the women around me are Black women, and those are the people whose stories I hear, and a lot of them don't have the most positive stories.
RIDDLE: Both these women say they'd feel more trusting overall of the medical establishment if there were more Black medical staff in the delivery room. In Augusta, there are a limited number of Black obstetricians. The number of Black doctors entering the field as a whole has been declining across the country in recent years. But there are some Black birth workers in Georgia if you know where to look.
ADJWA: Word of mouth - word of mouth is definitely a way that people track me down.
RIDDLE: Adjwa is a midwife. She's sitting in a rocking chair on her front porch in the Georgia heat. She asked to only use her middle name, since she's not legally licensed to practice here. That's because she didn't train as a nurse before becoming a midwife, something the state of Georgia requires. Decades ago, Black women in the community would learn to deliver babies by apprenticing, and that's how she learned 45 years ago. An older midwife saw potential in her.
ADJWA: She says, let me see your hands. So I showed her my hands, and she rubbed my hands. She says, these are the hands of a midwife.
RIDDLE: Adjwa says she would prefer to practice legally. And some people are trying to make it possible for more people like her to become licensed birth workers across the country. Angela Aina is the co-founder of the organization Black Mamas Matter Alliance.
ANGELA AINA: The midwives, the doulas, nurses, physicians, folks who lead community-based perinatal and maternal and reproductive health, and they actually provide services within their communities.
RIDDLE: In the last decade, they have seen increased federal investment and initiatives aimed at improving maternal health outcomes. Despite calls from President Trump for people to have more babies, his administration has not prioritized these kinds of investments. Aina says it's not just Black women that stand to lose.
AINA: We always say, when you do right by Black women, you know, you do right by all women.
RIDDLE: Aina says, if more Black women could put their trust in the medical system, all moms would benefit. Katia Riddle, NPR News, Georgia.
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