What Must We Do To Be Heard?
I found myself sitting down to write another entry I had been planning since last week, when a headline that I just couldn’t ignore flashed across my screen. An October 2022 study found that nearly ⅓ of Black patients both modify the way they speak and dress when seeking medical care, while nearly half reported signaling to providers that they were educated and knowledgeable about the subjects being discussed. All of these in an effort to secure better medical care.
Here we are in the year 2023 and the hallmarks of double consciousness are still alive and well. Black patients are acutely aware, informed by a lifetime of experience, that bias runs so deep that they could possibly be denied proper care depending on the image they present. I know the feeling all too well.
I was 23 weeks (roughly 6 months) pregnant when my water broke in February of 2020. I had no idea as I was rushed to the ER that I would spend the next 3 weeks in the hospital and another 109 days after that with my daughter in the NICU. An experience that would alter my life but one that also carried an additional burden to it as a black woman. I often forget about some of the stories that I have from that hospital stay as I often tend to retell the events in very broad strokes. But it was those small moments that shaped my experience and made what was already a very raw and painful time that much more difficult to endure.
Somewhere between 24-28 weeks of pregnancy women are normally tested for gestational diabetes. They are usually given a toxic sugary concoction to do this test. It’s often laden with food dyes and other additives. For the record midwives have long been testing using things like jelly beans instead. I had decided very early in my pregnancy that I wouldn’t be drinking the drink, but like many other wishes I had had for a less medicalized and natural pregnancy, my original plan went out the window when I was hospitalized. When it came time for the testing, I calmly (the black woman in me knew there was no place for emotion here) explained to the doctor I wasn’t comfortable ingesting sugar or food dyes and was told that the only other option I had was to do finger pricks to test my levels 4-5 times a day for 3 days. I smiled and said stick away!
After the first full day of tests the doctor informed me that my readings were perfect if not slightly lower than normal. I explained, as I had to the nutritionist and the three other rotating medical teams before her, that I wasn’t surprised since it had been years that my household had been free of processed sugar, seed oil, food dyes and nearly all other carcinogenic food additives. She replied that’s fine, but we will still do the full 3 days of testing. My fingertips already purple and bruised made no difference, and I complied, given the other “choice” of ingesting poison.
Fast forward to day 2 of finger pricks. I had gone down the hall on my daily commute to the communal shower (a post for another day) and upon approaching the nurses station I overheard two white nurses speaking about a patient. I quickly realized that patient was me and I slowed down enough to allow them the time to finish their thoughts. Before they noticed me approaching I heard them discuss how my refusal to drink toxins had led to more work for them having to do the tests multiple times a day and also how pointless even doing testing was, because and here I quote “You know how badly those people eat.” They were sure I’d test positive in the end anyways. They stopped dead in their tracks when they realized I was standing there, looks of mortification paralyzing their faces. I could have reacted, but deep down I knew that even a justified emotional response would and could have been used against me at a later date. My one goal was to keep myself and my unborn daughter safe while we were at the mercy of a system that hasn’t always done so for women who look like me.
An hour later the doctor walked in, singing a completely different tune from the previous day and said for no apparent reason (other than that obviously the nurses had told her what had happened) they were stopping the testing immediately and I was fine. I said thank you and left well enough alone. I had enough to worry about, including carrying my daughter to over 24 weeks so that she would be considered viable and worth saving if born. Something I had been told when admitted at 23 weeks was not yet the case. Also a post for another day.
I think about the stress that women carrying children are already under from a system that doesn’t offer much support and my heart breaks for black mothers who are subjected to bear an even heavier burden. When we talk about black mothers getting better care from providers that look like them, it is important to note that it isn’t that simple. We have to insist that the care being provided addresses the biases that too many professionals (even sometimes those that look like us) hold against us. Stereotypes about diet, lifestyle, attitudes, emotional states and even the presumption that we are unlikely to want to nurse our own babies are harming black women and their children. We are sat here watching a maternal health crisis continue to worsen and instead of just wringing our hands in consternation, it is high time we start doing the real work toward the change that needs to be made.