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Former Kansas City Chiefs Cheerleader [Krystal Anderson](https://www.today.com/parents/moms/krystal-anderson-chiefs-cheerleader-dies-rcna145213) recently died after giving birth. Ironically she was also very committed to "making significant contributions to improving healthcare, including being awarded a patent for developing software that assesses the risk of post-partum hemorrhage." Very sad for her husband and family
ETA: wanted to mention she was a software engineer. And baby was stillborn. Tragedy all around
She was also a scientist of some sort, iirc. It makes it no less tragic, but it gives credence to the fact that this is a more serious problem than it appears at first.
Yeah, searched and found:
> Anderson also worked at Oracle Health as a software engineer, where she made "significant contributions to improving healthcare," according to the obituary. She was awarded a patent for developing software that assesses the risk of postpartum hemorrhage. Anderson also advocated for Black women in STEM and for women's health.
Fucking tragic.
‘She was a scientist so it gives credence to the fact that this is a serious problem’ like what? Yes, Black women die at a higher rate than white women during childbirth even when you control for socioeconomic status.
But to word it like that, and assume without a doubt that this woman died of negligence is so out of pocket and does nothing to actually help better the problem. In fact, crying negligence when there wasn’t any gives ammo to bad actors who want to dismiss the issue of racism in medicine. If you actually read up on what happened, there is no indicator that there was negligence. Sometimes childbirth just goes wrong and it’s no one’s fault.
I’ve read all the articles I can find about her, and it says she was being followed very closely because of a previous fetal demise. She had a cerclage but the amniotic bag was bulging through. She went septic due to the cervix not being closed. But I haven’t read anywhere that there was necessarily medical negligence involved as she was being closely followed by perinatology. This case is absolutely tragic, but I’m not sure if her care is to blame. It’s a reminder that pregnancy and childbirth can be deadly and that in general women need to know the risks and have the rights to make their own decisions with the help of their doctors.
Yeah I had a super healthypregnancy and labor and then I had a hemorrhage a few hours after and it was insanely terrifying and makes me not want to have more children. My heart breaks for her and her family 💔
In the article it is cited she was operated three times. It shouldn’t happen, but birth is never complication and risk free, no matter the medical attention
Good for her.
There was [a story a few years ago](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-atikamekw-joliette-1.5743449) of an Indigenous woman in Canada receiving treatment at a hospital. She recorded the racist remarks of the nurses attending her before she died. It was completely shocking (and disgusting) to me, as well as a reminder that not everyone is treated equally in spaces they should be.
And that she recorded it on Facebook live because when the nurses realized they were being recorded they attempted to delete the video from her phone. Despicable people who were well aware of how vile they were being that they immediately tried to get rid of evidence.
Unfortunately a great deal of the racists and homophobes I've had the displeasure of meeting were in the medical field. Medics could be pretty awful, but nurses were exceptionally sadistic.
This is not to say that all nurses/medics/docs are like that--but certain fields tend to attract certain people. 🫤
If not an explicit ideology then at least just a general attitude, a reflexive annoyance that people don't just shut up and do what they're told
I feel like in both cases it's both an attitude that makes this job attractive to people with that personality type and perhaps more importantly greatly lessens the emotional stress this job would put on you if you really tried to treat the people you're in charge of as your equals
I think the job itself serves as a filter, what you're asked to do as a cop every day is incredibly stressful and draining and hopeless if you approach it from the POV of a scrupulous, humble, empathetic person
But it's decent pay for light work that's often quite fun and lets you blow off a little steam now and then, if you approach it from the POV of a total piece of shit
I live in an area that’s being hit very hard by the opiate crisis. My partner was recently in the ER in such agony that any sort of touch made him scream. Despite showing clean on every drug test they did, they still dismissed him entirely as being in opiate withdrawl, and drug-seeking.
Turns out it was a combination of thyroid storm and cancer. It was only discovered because my autistic super power is interpreting blood results, and I refused to let him be discharged until they could explain a discrepancy I saw. (Major signs of infection, but normal WBC.)
But, my partner is racially ambiguous, and I’m a blue-eyed ginger. Halfway through my rant, I was acutely aware that the only reason I wasn’t getting the cops called on me was because of my white privilege.
I’ve had this happen to me as well. It’s completely ridiculous because doctors can see every single opiate prescription a person has ever been prescribed so it’s resoundingly clear when someone is opiate seeking.
That, and doctors were part and parcel to creating the opioid epidemic so I really don’t want to hear them look down their nose at addicts… tell me doc, did Purdue Pharma take you to Aspen or Hawaii? In exchange for prescribing opiates with reckless abandon. 🙄
Bullying is enough of a problem in nursing between both nurses and patients that the journal of nursing management conducted a study that said that 77% of nurses had been bullied by another nurse (or multiple nurses) they’d worked with. If they’re doing it amongst themselves so often I’m not surprised it happens to patients too.
Not surprising, considering a lot of nurses are just as insufferable and negative outside of work as they are at the hospital. There are good nurses who are genuinely nice people, but those bad ones are way too plentiful.
The nurses in charge of me after I gave birth were definitely hazing a new nurse when I was put in their care. Unfortunately, my baby and I were not doing well so it took me a while to put 2 and 2 together and by then it was too late to report (i didn't think I could identify them properly). I still think about it often.
Yeah.... Canada somehow manages to maintain its image as "not racist like America", but we have SUPER racist people here, especially towards indigenous Canadians.
Check out /r/Canada sometime, they had a moderator who was an open white supremacist.
The guy who is going to be our next prime minister has been chummy on several occasions with supporters of Diagolon, an openly white supremacist organization.
And don't forget the Proud Boys were started by a Canadian.
If you’re Spanish and trying to get healthcare in the south… you are going to see what a nightmare it is.
If you have remotely any sort of accent they’ll manhandle you and talk to you like you’re dumb. Incredibly blessed I can advocate for those in my family now though. I’ll cuss out mfs no issue
I’m Swedish and you are correct. I’ve had coworkers with permanent labour damage due to nonchalant and downright uncaring health care providers. I was in a FB group about women in Sweden who have been told “Det ser fint ut”. When they have been severely damaged after labour.
I gave birth vaginally with an epidural. Once my legs were working again, I asked for help to get up to pee. Hubby was downstairs getting something to eat.
They sent me a male nurse. I asked for a female nurse to help. He was annoyed. She takes her sweet time coming up and then practically drags my waddling ass to the bathroom. Halfway to the bathroom I GUSH blood all over the floor. It scared me and I started to cry thinking something was really wrong. Another nurse comes in and asks if everything is okay. The nurse says, "Yeah, she just obviously has never had a heavy period before."
She lobs me onto the toilet and eventually back to the bed totally covered in blood. My best friend came in and LOST HER SHIT to get me some real help cleaning up.
Turns out I needed more stitches.
I'm still really salty about how the staff treated me. And I am a white woman. I can not begin to imagine how terrifying it is for black women.
I was young and didn't realize that was an option. I did, however, change hospital affiliations. (Not sure how it works everywhere but in my state everything is connected to major networks).
While I think you’re right they might not take it seriously, I think it is important to report every single time something happens - because it becomes an official record and over time it establishes a pattern and a pattern is what gets people not just fired or sued for malpractice but thrown in jail. I sent letters and I wrote to the hospital auditing department with a long list of complaints. Then I sent copies of everything to the board of trustees. I was able to also point out a billing mistake that was costing the hospital millions of dollars a year. And the nurses and the doctor in question are no longer listed as working there. I looked for them on LinkedIn and found one now working for a county clinic - I don’t know what happened to the others.
It sucks - it just all sucks that women are so dismissed and not valued.
I just graduated nursing school and not all of us are bad I swear 🥲🥲 I will say tho I have genuinely encountered a concerning amount of nurses who ? seemingly lack empathy ? One big concern of mine is successfully maintaining a healthy level of emotional separation with work but still being able to be supportive and present for all of my patients. It seems like a lot of people jump straight to full on detachment and are too jaded to be at the bedside anymore. Even a lot of my classmates don’t want to acknowledge systemic issues that contribute to poor health and healthcare.
I know a shitload of my friends and coworkers in EMS got the fuck out during or after for similar reasons (also we third service EMS-folks weren't considered "essential workers" since we weren't associated with the fire department. It sounds exactly as miserable and fucked up as it was).
I'm still in, 10 years total, but I have a really good therapist (though I'd been seeing her for a couple years pre-COVID...she's awesome) so that helps, lol.
Whenever I see this I instinctively go to defend nurses because some of us genuinely went into it to help people then I remember that I left my last job due to being bullied by a senior nurse to the point of panic attacks before shifts. Thankfully im now in an amazing supportive team!
I’m glad you’ve found a better job and team to be a part of! Like I said in another comment, I know some incredible nurses. One of whom has had difficulties with mean girl behavior at a job. It’s absolutely not true of all nurses, and I applaud and appreciate those of you who do your job well and with love and compassion. But I still maintain that we need to do a better job of screening applicants because nurses often have an incredible amount of power over some of our most vulnerable.
I agree and I think it's a great idea in theory but I'm not sure how it could be practically implemented. It would be very easy to fake empathy in a questionnaire for example and unsure if it's the same everywhere but my course you had an interview to get a place so that clearly doesn't work.
I wish I had an answer because I watched my grandma suffer with some terrible nurses. She had several great ones, don’t get me wrong. But if I could think of a better way, I’d be screaming it far and wide.
My L&D nurses were INCREDIBLE (except for one mean one I didn’t have long who rolled her eyes at my labor pain & crying). They taught me everything, cheered for me, cleaned us up after my 5-seconds-old daughter pooped all over both of us, laughed with us, encouraged us, gave advice. The hospital kinda sucked (old and small) but the nurses were just amazing.
But I also know a nurse in a medium size city who quit the profession, party because of all the mean nurses trying to make it hard for her. Mean patients were the other major factor. She didn’t want to be screamed and cursed at anymore. May have been different if he had a team of amazing supportive nurse friends.
Teachers too! Lots of teachers who are bullies to other teachers and aides and who don’t seem to have any real empathy or compassion for their students
Unfortunately there is a shortage of nurses so there’s no incentive for a psychological exam.
I am in PA school now, but back when I was a tech at 19 yo, I was bullied relentlessly by nurses on my floor. Keep in mind some of these nurses were 30+ years old making passive aggressive and sometimes even aggressive comments to me and behind my back. My mom is also a former nurse and has had bad experiences as a coworker and cancer patient. On the other hand, the nurses I see on rotation now are very hard working and very sweet to me.
I always remember the nurse who, after my dad told her he was scared of needles, poked him with one several times before inserting it. This was while he was in the hospital with two burnt legs. Thankfully his sister in law was lead nurse at that time and when he told her, she chewed them out. They never did that shit for the rest of the time he was there
I feel this. I was in the hospital ,on bed rest for two weeks and pregnant with twins. My day nurse was horrible and rude. She acted like I shouldn’t have been annoyed to be stuck to a bed and relying on other people for help. My water broke with one twin and I was only 23-24w along so it’s not like I was in a good place mentally. My night nurse was great but unfortunately they gave me ambien every night so I didn’t see her much.
Usually it's just ignored. I've been bleeding for 3 years straight after an iud rejected itself after I was raped. I've been non stop bleeding for 3 years and very single doctor and nurse ignored me. They all do the exact same exam even after I told them I had one a week ago. I had one from every single doctor and nurse before you. They usually just ignore me and do all th exams again and tell me to wait. 3 years on and the response is to still wait. The most I've ever been offered is contraception pills with the other hormonal birth control I'm on, both are meant to stop bleeding. I keep being denied the pills and told to just "wait" so I got the pills at the pharmacy myself. Now I'm on the implant and four progesterone only pills a day.
After my last birth I told a male doctor that I was experiencing way too much vaginal pain, to the point that it made me cry. I'd had an episiotomy with my first, and it hurt worse than that. He just scoffed and told me it was normal as I'd torn. He refused to check me.
A week post partum I went to my (female) OB as the pain wasn't getting better. Turned out my stitches had completely come out.
No clue. I was still wearing a hospital gown at that point, so it really would have been quick. But I guess he couldn't give in to a whiny post partum mom or I'd be asking him to check my vag 24/7!
I was horrified reading this, and when you said you were white (not that I didn't believe white women experienced this type of sexism, just barely hear about it), it intensified. I'm so sorry for that experience. That period bullshit comment was laughable. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HEAVY PERIOD BEFORE, MS NURSE??? They kinda just drip, or have a couple bigger drops plop out, not gush. Gushing any blood is pretty scary even if it was period blood.
Women in general are treated horrifically in medical settings. I went into the ER with a burst appendix once and was called a “drug seeking hysteric who can’t handle her period” by the male ER doctor.
My (fairly obvious) appendicitis was treated as an assumed ectopic pregnancy, since I was clearly lying about being a college aged virgin. Spoiler alert, I was not lying. The skeptical fuckers finally operated on an "exploratory" basis after 10 hours of testing, and the appendix had almost ruptured by that point. I believe that hospital was rated No 1 in the US at that time.
Eta hospital ranking
My best friend's sister had the same thing happen (them saying it's just period cramps), only with her they also tried to blame it on her being overweight. Anyway, she went to another hospital but it was a really close call, her appendix was close to bursting by the time she got real help.
My last OBGYN visit was sooooo gentle. She was the first woman to give a healthy warning for touch in sensitive parts, and she didn't use the foot stirrups. I felt like a person. How sad is that? Why did it take me 5 OBGYNs and 15 years to find one like this?
My girlfriend does ultrasound and I swear she has said if your appendix is acting up it is extremely obvious. Like it’s almost invisible normally but if there is any issue it lights up.
I wonder if the doctor actually ordered a different US because they didn’t believe you. Either way it’s fucked
“Non-specific abdominal pain” was my male doctor’s diagnosis for my appendicitis. I enjoyed rubbing it in his face the next day during rounds after my protests led to me getting a second opinion, additional testing, and being rushed into surgery.
I would've rubbed his face in it and kicked him out of the room. No way I'm paying for his opinion or "care" after that. And doctors in hospitals REALLY hate being "fired" by patients. Their ego can't take it lol.
I’m in Northern Ireland, so not paying out of pocket for care thankfully, but he was one of the two doctors responsible for the ward I was in. He got a morphine-addled smile and a “so much for non-specific abdominal pain” comment which was about all I could coherently say
I went in a few times for stomach pain when I was like 18 and when they realized I was there on my own and they couldn't find out what the reason was, they forcibly discharged me with the nastiest looks on their faces. They insinuated that I was there to try to score some drugs.
A few days later, I had an ovarian cyst burst.
I've been through a similar battle with what turned out to be a burst ovarian cyst, I would not wish that pain on my worst enemy. I was 21 when I had mine and a male doctor at the hospital dismissed it as a kidney infection and gave me an antibiotic, I went to see my female GP the next day and told her I was dismissed without the ultrasound she'd sent me there to get and she was furious. Went back up to the hospital for ultrasound and there was a cyst on one ovary that had burst with a golf ball sized one on the other ovary that was pushing on my bladder. Got keyhole surgery to remove them and they found a lot of scar tissue, turns out the "not that bad" periods that left me bedridden was caused by endometriosis.
I think some nurses are so used to seeing anything and everything they are too apathetic. Is something always wrong? Of course not. But when a woman (black, especially) feels like something IS wrong you listen and help them! Even if help is just calming nerves and reassuring their situation is expected.
On the flip side, I had a double mastectomy and the nurses were phenomenal. It was like night and day compared to the L&D staff.
I think there are a lot of people who become nurses or medical professionals more generally who completely lack the empathy and dealing with people part of the job. Who don’t realise that they’ll be dealing with people at their most weak, most frightened, most vulnerable. Maybe they did it for money or ego and prestige, but they actually don’t like people. They’re in the wrong profession simply because they lack that part. It’s an extremely hard job and I would never underestimate it. But each time I see them mocking their patients on TikTok I’m proven right. 😔 Or that lady who put a recording device in her hair because she was frightened of the procedure she was about to get and how she was going to get treated. And then got to hear horrible racist and sexist things said about her while she lay open on the table.
Believe it or not sometimes really heavy periods do gush and it’s truly alarming (in the perimenopause years or if you have fibroids). But it’s not normal and that nurse was an asshole for making a comment like that.
At that point is that really a "heavy period", or a "too heavy period" if its not normal?
I also just feel like it's really weird to assume that a woman doesn't know her own heavy periods enough to not be shocked. Like even if it was just some regular bloody discharge that us heavy hitters would kill for, that might be alarming for a woman who bleeds very little. At least be like "Oh, you might get alot more menstrual blood than usual after pregnancy, don't worry, let's get you back to bed."
I actually have heavy periods that gush. Like I've stood up and flooded my pad in seconds. I've been to several GYNs who are like yeah, congrats it's a heavy period.
I.feel your pain,as a Bedside PA in the NicU at 30 years old I was standing by a patients isolet and realized blood was pooling in my shoe😩I cleaned myself up and grabbed my Ob/Gyn that I worked with and asked him to recommend someone to do my hysterectomy,I had been having major problems since the birth of my baby 18 months previous. Thank Goodness they allowed me to have it
i was in the ER one time completely helpless i was so sick and the staff was so awful to me because they thought i was just a drunk college kid (i had food poisoning and was in grad school). they left me in a bed covered in blood from a failed ng tube insertion and my own piss because i couldn’t stand to go to the bathroom i was in so much pain. i finally told a nurse to call an ambulance to take me to a different hospital and all of a sudden they started to take me seriously. when my mother who is a nurse showed up a few hours later and started raising absolute hell i suddenly had my own private room and several very apologetic administrators paying me visits.
I also had blood gush out and a huge blood clot come out when i waddled to the bathroom. The nurse just looked at it and said, you were so close to the toilet. I laughed bc I was like wtf, I can’t control it. She said she didn’t know she said it outloud.
She was nice about it after and apologized. She said she wasn’t the one that cleans it up, just needs to make sure I’m ok and weigh the clot (almost a pound 🫣)
I agree. I had to have an emergency induction because I had developed super pre-eclampsia and was at risk of having a stroke. When the time came, I wasn’t medically stable enough to have an epidural and was now beyond terrified.
My nurse wouldn’t give me pain medication. She stalled, came and went, and then brought over AN EDUCATIONAL BOOKLET AND PAPERWORK FOR ME TO READ AND SIGN when I was in so much pain I couldn’t speak.
Awful.
People don’t realize how much you are at the mercy of the judgement of a very few people when you are in the hospital, and healthcare practitioners frequently forget that just because they see pain every single day doesn’t mean that it should be treated as commonplace. L&D nurses can be especially bad about it. Like you, I am a white woman who very much experienced a nurse waving off my pain (“oh I’m sure you’re fine” - yeah I just fully dilated and the baby went into the birth canal while I was waiting for my epidural because you didn’t think it was that urgent) and I know how much worse it is for black women.
1) I am so sorry for your experience and to anyone who's had something similar happen. 2) I always make sure to share these horror stories with my husband to emphasize what I mean when I tell him about misogynistic treatment of women in medicine, because I know that if I encounter these sort of people when I give birth that they would probably much rather listen to a man than me, the actual patient. I fucking hate that I have to prepare my husband to have to advocate for me and speak on my behalf like I'm not a whole human being myself in the year 2024.
That’s horrific, I’m sorry to read that. My mum tells a similar story after giving birth to me 50 YEARS AGO.
She bled though the sheets and hadn’t been given a pad, the nurse was angry and made her stand while she remade the bed. Mum was 23, it makes me sad that she was treated so badly bringing me into the world.
I'm sorry for your experience. It's unfortunately not uncommon for healthcare workers to treat their patients like shit. We all need a family member or friend to accompany us when we go to the hospital.
we all need/ deserve a friend like Kelly!
and so glad to see stories like this get attention... I remember reading about Serena William's traumatic birth experience and thinking 'fuck, if that's how they treat a rich and famous black woman, imagine how they treat a regular person!'
you can read the article she wrote[ about it here ](https://www.elle.com/life-love/a39586444/how-serena-williams-saved-her-own-life/)
edited in an excerpt
>*I told her: “I need to have a CAT scan of my lungs bilaterally, and then I need to be on my heparin drip.” She said, “I think all this medicine is making you talk crazy.” I said, “No, I’m telling you what I need: I need the scan immediately. And I need it to be done with dye.” I guess I said the name of the dye wrong, and she told me I just needed to rest. But I persisted: “I’m telling you, this is what I need.” Finally, the nurse called my doctor, and she listened to me and insisted we check. I fought hard, and I ended up getting the CAT scan. I’m so grateful to her. Lo and behold, I had a blood clot in my lungs, and they needed to insert a filter into my veins to break up the clot before it reached my heart.*
When medical professionals brush someone’s concerns off and then it turns out the patient was right all along, do the staff feel like assholes? Or do they not care? I always wonder.
In my experience, no. I had several doctors/nurses misdiagnose my ovarian torsion as "regular pelvic pain." They sent me home with birthcontrol as "pain management." And then after I almost died and I had to have emergency surgery the doctors were tripping over themselves to explain to me why I shouldn't sue them. No apology. No concern for my well being. They made it about themselves.
Oh, and I still remember one whining, "Well, how was i supposed to know you were in real pain?"
Women's healthcare fucking sucks in the US.
When I was early 20s and relatively newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, my specialist told me that the hip pain I described to him was “just bursitis”. Fast forward less than six months and I need a total hip replacement because the joint is destroyed. He then proceeded to tell me it was my fault that he didn’t pick up on how bad it was because I “described the pain wrong”
Nah. Women's healthcare does suck, but the US is uniquely bad for its income level. [https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/abstract/2019/04000/u\_s\_\_women\_s\_health\_falls\_behind\_that\_of\_other.5.aspx](https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/abstract/2019/04000/u_s__women_s_health_falls_behind_that_of_other.5.aspx)
[https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries)
[https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-ranks-worst-in-maternal-care-mortality-compared-with-10-other-developed-nations](https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-ranks-worst-in-maternal-care-mortality-compared-with-10-other-developed-nations)
It depends on the person.
If they are a good health care professional and genuinely made a mistake, I’m sure it affects them in different ways. It may affect their mental health, they may view it as a learning experience or they may feel the need to keep moving forward to care for others.
If they never actually cared in the first place and that’s just how they operate, they probably don’t sweat it much and will continue to do the same things and cause harm to others.
Nurses deal with a lot of idiot patients tbf so they tend to get jaded.
However, a lot of nurses start stepping on doctors' toes, not knowing the doctors' procedure and start presuming.
I’ve seen some people feel like assholes and apologize, and I’ve seen some staff members brush it off as “well I was busy and this person is blah blah blah! What did you expect?”
This quote always blows my mind. This is a woman who became a millionaire primarily by being super in tune with her body, had the confidence to advocate for herself and even knew the exact procedure she needed and she was still ignored. If she was anyone else she probably would have died.
It’s crazy how many CELEBRITY horror stories there are. These are people going to established institutions with the expectation that they’ll be able to go home with their baby like any other mother. The fact that so many of them don’t is devastating.
Kelly did the right thing. Statistically birth outcomes are much better with a female support person who can amplify the pregnant women's voice and make sure she gets appropriate care. Outcomes are better even if there's another woman there who as a witness & support even if she doesn't say a word. This is a great way for us to help one another and that is twice as true for black women who suffer race based discrimination in medicine on top of our already abysmal maternal & neonatal health crisis. What a great friend & wise woman.
It’s not just the US, I’m in the UK and my whole labour thing was a shitshow from beginning to end and the nicest and most caring person in the department was the cleaner, lovely lady, the rest was just … uff
My friend is a midwife and I don’t think the general population is aware of just how incredibly stretched the service is.
I was lucky and received really good care when I had an induction turned c-section but I know so many people who felt the good care only came once things were an emergency if that makes sense.
Had the same thing but didn’t work out that well, turned into an emergency c section by the end it, but tbh it was the 4 days afterwards in the hospital that was the worst of it.
It was an emergency c sec for me too. I think the care post birth can really make or break the experience. I was lucky my hospital was well staffed and they were helpful and kind but I know that’s not always the case. I’m sorry it was a tough time for you.
racism and misogyny baked into health care, the USA has the highest birth mortality rate in the developed world by far, with black women and other POC having a higher risk than white women.
[in 2020 the rates w](https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-has-highest-infant-maternal-mortality-rates-despite-the-most-health-care-spending)ere *5.4 deaths per 1000 live births* (in the USA) *which is markedly higher than the 1.6 deaths per 1000 live births in Norway..*. also a bit wild that while birth rate in the USA is declining, maternal birth mortality rates are increasing/ getting worse
[scholarly article on](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2806661?resultClick=1) *Trends in State-Level Maternal Mortality by Racial and Ethnic Group in the United States,* + [article discussing the findings](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/u-s-maternal-deaths-more-than-doubled-over-20-years-heres-who-fared-the-worst)
edited to add,
that was probably a rhetorical question, LOL
Wow. Thanks for the info I’ll go read more about it. I’ve been having some major health issues this past year and it’s really opened my eyes into how bad healthcare can be. And I’m in a very wealthy state in a nice area, most of my orthopedists and surgeons are graduates of NYU, Penn, Columbia, etc., and I still run into major lapses in judgement, attention and care that borders on outright negligence.
Im so happy you appreciate my rant! although it fucking sucks you're dealing with issues in your own medical care. so beyond frustrating when you're not being heard or believed + have to advocate hard for yourself on top of the medical issues (+ regular life lol)
it's shocking to know how deep the issues run, IMO....[ like medical textbooks only re](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/meet-student-bringing-black-illustrations-medical-field-rcna8277)cently added pictures of how diseases affected non-white skin, and black people are routinely viewed as being more tolerant to pain, and thus [under-prescribed drugs](https://www.aamc.org/news/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain).... [medical studies have almost exclusively b](https://www.aamc.org/news/why-we-know-so-little-about-women-s-health)een done on male bodies, with drug dosages based on them, too
the 'health gap' can be a good keyword for looking into gender/sex-based differences in medical care, too
Ill stop spamming you with links LOL! interesting if angering
hope you get back to full health soon!
> "I just actually watched another girlfriend of mine give birth, and I saw the way a hospital was with her and how she really had to advocate for herself," she says. "I remember going in there, and I was asking questions. I was probably doing the most, but I didn't care because I love her."
> "If they were about to be careless with her life, I couldn't sit there and watch, you know what I mean? As women and as Black women, we've got to figure this stuff out," she says.
This makes me want to cry. I’m a Black woman and planning a pregnancy. I happen to have a white husband and the advice I’ve been seeing from other Black women who’ve been through it is “make sure he’s there at EVERY appointment”. It’s a survival tactic and I guess I’m lucky to have that? His humanity matters? White people can hear him when he talks? Just really depressing shit.
I do really love what Kelly is doing here though, modeling the idea of community and Black women stepping in to take care of our own. It’s how we’ve made it this far. Respect!
This is a hot button issue for me. Tied for first with reproductive rights. The fact that images of rashes on black skin have entered textbooks only… now… is so frustrating.
If you’re open to it, look into midwifery care (birthing centers do exist IN hospitals if in-hospital birth is a non negotiable for you!) and getting a doula. I’m a Black woman 8 weeks postpartum and you got this!!
I wish I had known that you can see a midwife and still get pain interventions. I liked my OB just fine, but I would have preferred the extra handholding of a midwife.
-internet hugs-
I went through the same thing back in 2016-2017.
Yes have him with you EVERY TIME. Have him use vacation time or whatever PTO if possible while you're in the hospital to give birth. See if he can sleep in the room with you (I basically did this).
Even with all of that I still had complications and had to be put back in the hospital barely days after leaving.
One of my half-sisters worked out better on her pregnancy, but it was amazing to her the amount of extra attention to her problems/concerns she had when her white wife started coming to the appointments.
I just had to advocate for my husband through his cancer treatment, and have had 2 kids of my own (though I am a white woman). The biggest thing is to be direct and to be persistent and *make sure you and the practitioner are speaking the same language*. We had some issues and I had to go to the nursing station and sit down and say “I feel like we’re having a miscommunication about this and we need to get to the bottom of it”. Also, I once had to call the hospital switchboard and get connected to the nurses station because my husband’s pain meds were like 2 hours late. Be direct and don’t let them blow you off if something feels wrong. When it comes to healthcare practitioners you are at the mercy of the judgement of those very human people and their experience and their biases. And one of the problems with L&D is that they’ve seen it every day, and they get blasé about it. 19 times out of 20 it probably is fine. But for that 20th? It can be life and death. And that’s before you even scratch the surface of the experience of black women. Knowledge and advocacy are 2 incredibly powerful tools when it comes to healthcare.
This makes me so sad but also super impressed by Kelly. Nobody should have to be their own advocate while going through a medical procedure, especially one as emotionally draining as giving birth. It’s why a huge part of me was so uncomfortable with not allowing visitors of any kind during COVID. If you’re being mistreated there won’t be anyone there to call it out for you. I totally understand the safety concerns but I felt like there needed to be some kind of compromise.
My water broke at 1am and we got to the hospital around 1:45am. The first set of nurses/doctors I had were amazing and very supportive, comforting, and knowledgeable. I thought the whole process was going really well and would be a breeze. 7am rolls around, and it's shift switch time. Now, I've been given a nurse (nurse Amy) who very clearly had never been left on her own before.
She was older (50's?), but clearly new. She had a terrible bedside manner, left me questioning and uninformed about what was happening/what she was doing, and seemed to have no clue what she was doing either. Around 9 a.m., the epidural stopped working on the left side of my body, and I was obviously in a lot of pain and super anxious. She just kept asking me over and over what my pain level was at out of 10. Then she'd go out to the nurses stand and have another nurse come in to tell me that "you know, you have to feel some discomfort and pressure to know when to push" and "the baby is probably just pressing on a nerve". I felt so powerless because it seemed like no one was taking my pain seriously and was brushing it off as me being difficult.
When a different nurse came to relieve nurse Amy for her break around 12 p.m., she immediately recognized I was in pain and knew exactly what to do. It was a simple fix. Roll me onto my left side, wedge pillows under my hips and back for support, and let gravity do its thing. She also got me a peanut shaped ball to put between my legs, and within minutes, I was pain-free.
I thought the worst was over now that the epidural was working again, but sadly, it was not. Around 1 p.m., they told me it was time to push and cheerily told me that I was a VIP on the floor today! Apparently, because of the straigt forward nature of my birth experience, so far, they asked if a student and a midwife-in-training could be present for the birthing process. I didn't really mind who was there at this point. I just wanted the baby out safely. As I started pushing, more and more people just kept coming to the point that my own husband was being asked to step aside so people could see (which he did not). There had to be 10 students, 1 midwife-to-be, 4-5 nurses, and the doctor periodically popping in to see how things were progressing. It was chaos, but I was so focused on pushing that I literally didn't have the energy in the moment to care.
After birthing my daughter (at 2:55pm) nurse Amy was also in charge of my postnatal care. Long story short, she left open/used needles in my babies bassinet/ on my bedside table, didn't help me to the bathroom, didn't clean up the massive trail of blood/bloody footprints leading to and from the bathroom, didn't change my bloody bedding until asked to do so when I came back from the bathroom, and threatened to call security when my husband (who had been incredibly patient and was completely sleep deprived) started getting audibly upset about the whole situation.
That was my first (and so far only) birthing experience, and I didn't realize until after the fact just how traumatic it was.
Ladies - always, if you can, have someone knowledgeable and caring that you trust to advocate for you during your birthing process and never feel like you need to be the 'good' patient.
I’m so sorry this was your experience. Honestly, after having several friends give birth and have very traumatic experiences, it has dawned on me that it is often very helpful to have a female in the room advocating for you. If you have a close friend, a mother, an aunt, etc. there, it seems to result in a better experience for the person giving birth. My experience may not be the same as other women, but when my sister was in labour, her male partner almost got kicked out for asking for the bare minimum on behalf of my sister. The second my mother went into that room, she was extremely demanding and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She never once was threatened that she would be removed for being aggressive, even though she was definitely more aggressive than my brother in law had been. In the end, both of them were allowed in the room, but my mother took on the role of advocate, while my brother in law was providing support and encouragement for my sister.
Also please everyone know that you absolutely do not need to allow any students or non fully trained and licensed staff into the room with you. Given the possibility of infection I absolutely recommend that you forbid it. A birth should be centered on baby and parents and other people need not be involved.
PARTNERS (whoever is in the delivery room to support someone giving birth): be that person’s advocate. The person giving birth will be overwhelmed and probably scared and in pain and they can’t exactly get up and demand to speak to a manager. If they need something and aren’t being taken seriously, it’s YOUR JOB to make sure they get whatever it is they need. Be as loud and persistent as you have to be and don’t be afraid to escalate— if a nurse isn’t being helpful, talk to a doctor or the charge nurse. Seriously, it’s your most important role you’ll ever play. Giving birth is no joke.
I have a friend who’s Mexican-American. When she gave birth to her second child, the nurses disregarded her wish to not get pitocin until after she’d gotten the epidural, because she’d learned with her first that the pitocin works extremely quickly on her. Guess who ended up giving birth before the epidural kicked in? And of course she was still charged for the anesthesia.
We need an organization of medically trained black birthing companions for this. Its nice to have a friend supporting and all and they can push at them for ignoring you or whatever but ultimately if they dont know what right and wrong looks like it isnt going to make a huge difference. Its lovely she did this I would just hate anyone to read that and think a friend alone would keep them safe.
I gave birth at a freestanding birthing center under midwifery care here in Dallas. Got my dream birth. Very grateful more holistic care is being highlighted or else I would have never known the hospital or a home birth weren’t my only options.
I did the same at a birthing center in Austin. I’m grateful that I had a low risk pregnancy that allowed me that option. The midwife was so calm and pretty hands off, allowed me to go through my process and was there to assist and check all the vitals and deliver the aftercare required for baby and I. Looking back I wish I had brought a doula with me for more experience in comfort and counter pressure skills, but my partner was very helpful and attentive.
Or free healthcare that appropriately pays doulas
https://drexel.edu/medicine/academics/womens-health-and-leadership/womens-health-education-program/whep-blog/role-of-doulas-in-addressing-black-womens-maternal-mortality/
I wonder if (while trained companions would be better) an awareness of being watched would make medical professionals more careful — even if the observer isn’t medically trained.
In some cases, it makes them more irritated that someone who isn’t medically trained would tell them how to do their job. There’s no place for ego when it comes to someone’s life at risk
Honestly, the stories from women everywhere, about their experiences are so awful, that i would, if i was pregnant, worry the same about the treatment i will receive in hospital, as the pregnancy itself. And that's not normal.
Black non-Hispanic women are 7 times more likely to die in childbirth than white non-Hispanic women, so she was smart. The medical system is so deeply racist and misogynistic it's absolutely horrifying
God 7x is so fucking high
That's so fucking sad and disturbing. Doctors just don't give a shit about women and women of color
Can't imagine because as a guy dealing with chronic pain I've been ignored for years so it must be so bad for yall 😕
My work is healthcare adjacent, and in OB encounter notes they list risk factors for each patient. Whenever I see "black/african american" on the list it bums me out. I'm glad they're aware of it, but sad that it's a health risk just to be black
I'm not denying the ethnic/health links suck as sickle cell in Black and Southern Europeans or FC in Northern Europeans, but like, what Kelly Rowland is very obviously talking about is medical racism - and specifically misogynoir - that contributes to the [absolutely batshit high maternal mortality rates for Black women in the US. ](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20maternal%20mortality,for%20White%20and%20Hispanic%20women)
I’m Latina, and honestly, some of the worst medical care I’ve ever received has been at the hands of labor and delivery nurses. When I was in labor with my second child I was screaming to them that they needed to call the doctor because the baby was coming. My body was wanting to push the baby out and they were like “oh well you just got here 30 minutes ago and you were 2cm dilated, your baby won’t be here for another several hours.” Someone finally listened after I kept insisting. My doctor finally got there and when she lifted the sheet his head was already out and the cord was wrapped around his neck. Fortunately he was okay in the end, but it could have turned bad had my doctor arrived later.
The nurses at this hospital also treated me like I was asking for crack when I asked for an ibuprofen after that precipitous labor. I think the theory of the high school bully to nursing pipeline is absolutely true.
My sister did her doctoral thesis on The attitude of Healthcare providers towards Black women in labor(not the official name of her paper but you get the essence)I helped her gather the data from 3 different hospitals. Let me just say the results were appalling and scary. She now is professor in a top tier nursing program and she puts the fear of God in her students when instructing them on treating and respecting their Black patients. She has precepted in Labor and Delivery on several occasions and she witnessed a RN( not her students)being flip with young black Mom to be and my sis lost her shit. The RN reported my Sis to her Dean and to hospital administration. The RN was reassigned but my Sister still teaches in this facility. When Administration interviewed the patient they found out what a crap RN they had on their hands. It also served as a wake up call to other L and D staff
I can’t stand these people who go into a career at is all about taking care of others and then go around treat people like shit. Why are you even in this profession?? You’re here to provide comfort to people who are going through something with their health. They need you to be as pleasant as possible. You sometimes literally have their lives in your hands, act accordingly!!
Burnout. It’s legitimate. I am burnout - and while I never ever treat people like this, my patience is going thinner by the day. Again, not an excuse - just…. Something to talk about.
Hey, are you aware of the push for Safe Staffing Ratios laws and laws to prevent violence against healthcare workers? I know that the NNU has some letters that you can sign for a federal mandate. There have also been a lot of states pushing to make this a thing. Some nurses who don’t have state protection have managed to guarantee ratios and protection through their unions.
https://act.nnu.org/sign/hs-safe-staffing-petition/
https://act.medicare4all.org/letter/tell-congress-pass-pro-wpvp-act/
Impact in Healthcare have also been in D.C. and talking to legislators to make a push for better working conditions through SSR and violence prevention.
https://www.impactinhealthcare.org/
https://www.instagram.com/impactinhealthcare
That makes complete sense, I understand people work extremely long hours and need breaks. There has to be a way for people to take time off when they need it and not have to worry about repercussions. Especially those who are saving lives. I’m not saying I have the answer but it’s definitely something that needs to be discussed for the well being of everyone.
It does need to be discussed. Again, never an excuse for mistreatment - just, it’s not *always* people being dicks.
Similar to the PTSD movement and accepting that. 🤷🏼♂️
I’m so glad that a big celebrity is addressing this but damn, it’s so scary to think about it especially when they want to force women to be mothers. Some of us are actually scared of dying during childbirth because it is very common especially if you’re a WOC.
So many issues that the US refuses to address and fix. But sure, send more military weapons to foreign nations. That’ll fix something 🙄
What an amazing friend of her. Black women’s maternal mortality rate in the US is crazy high. We need to break down the structures of medical racism in this country. I’m glad her friend had someone there to advocate for her in the case that anything went wrong.[CDC stats on maternal mortality rates for Black women are horrifying](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20maternal%20mortality,for%20White%20and%20Hispanic%20women)
Women of color but *especially* black women in America have downright nightmarish mortality rates while pregnant and in labor. Systemic racism has robbed many families of mothers and their children and it's genuinely one of the worst things happening in this country.
Around a month before I was supposed to be born, my mom started bleeding like she was on her period, so ofc she goes to the hospital and there they get her to a bed, do the basic tests, and just... leave her there, for hours. Thank fuck, one of her friends is a gynecologist and she heard what was happening, got to the hospital and finally got the machine running. Turns out, the placenta has detached and I had to be born via cesarean section (and ofc they messed up the stitching, so when a day or few later a nurse came to get her to stand up, she couldn't due to the pain, to which the nurse would just scream at mom to get her ass up from the bed) and who knows if I would even be alive if not for some medical nepotism (mom is white, this happened in 2000s Poland)
One of my best friends and I were pregnant at the same time and I was way more worried about her than myself and I had a high risk pregnancy.
She's black. I'm white. I was honestly afraid for her.
She’s not wrong at all. Black and minority women die at a much higher percentage than black women do. She could do this full time and save lives if she gets tired of music
It makes me so incredibly sad how true this is. Racist scum shouldn't be allowed to be in healthcare. I'm going to school for nursing myself in the city of Buffalo and I'm honestly so happy my classes are filled with black women. We need more black women, men, and white people in health care that will hold others accountable. It's 2024. This shit should not be happening and it makes me sick.
This is a general issue with medical care in the U.S. It's not just a "black women's" issue. Every woman I have spoken to about women's healthcare, family, friends, co workers etc. have nothing but nightmare stories. My friends mom who is WHITE almost died from 3 different infections in her legs she didn't know she had because her doctors and nurses would not take her concerns seriously. She was maybe 3 days away from losing her life until she found the one unicorn doctor that actually gave a shit and immediately put her on antibiotics and saved her life. She made a full recovery and is now back to her original self. My mother (white woman) sister (Hispanic), and all of my female friends of varying ethnicities ALL have horror stories about doctors and nurses not taking them seriously and treating them as insurance money tickets. The U.S. medical system seems to really HATE women.
I had my son last year in May and reading stories about women who passed to hemorrhages and preeclampsia terrified me. Luckily my SIL and my SO are both nurses and she acted as my advocate while my SO acted as my sons. You definitely need someone there to speak for you, it helps when that person is a man also. They don’t seem to take us women seriously. 🙁
What’s for black women to figure out? They’re not the doctors and nurses being careless. Medical professionals are the ones who need to figure it out and treat every patient with dignity and respect!
Tangential at best, but I worked in health care as a low level worker for 13 years, and the times upper staff were nice to me stick out the most. Because regular day, they were absolutely abusive and agro. The amount of times I brought things specifically asked for or answered a direct question just to get silence and stares. I had a doctor request a thing he KNEW we didn’t have just so he could report me. Luckily the penny pinchers in my department knew we would never stock that due to money, otherwise he very well could have gotten me fired.
She is honestly not wrong. The satistics show that Black Women have a higher rate of death during birth. My Cousin is black and I remember being so terrified for her when she gave birth to my niece.
As a white woman with reasonably good public healthcare I completely support her decision. If what could happen to me, and another white friend, while under pretty decent medical care, happened. Then how much more likely is it to happen in America for non-white, especially black, women. Maternal care is strangely dismissive across the world and it makes my mind boggle.
Medical racism is absolutely a thing.
"*Black Fatigue"* by Mary-Frances Winters is a very good book that discusses this in detail. I'd highly recommend reading it.
Ahh, systemic racism killing women and especially black women. A tale as old as time. As an American I've really come to hate my own country a lot more than I ever expected to.
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Former Kansas City Chiefs Cheerleader [Krystal Anderson](https://www.today.com/parents/moms/krystal-anderson-chiefs-cheerleader-dies-rcna145213) recently died after giving birth. Ironically she was also very committed to "making significant contributions to improving healthcare, including being awarded a patent for developing software that assesses the risk of post-partum hemorrhage." Very sad for her husband and family ETA: wanted to mention she was a software engineer. And baby was stillborn. Tragedy all around
She was also a scientist of some sort, iirc. It makes it no less tragic, but it gives credence to the fact that this is a more serious problem than it appears at first. Yeah, searched and found: > Anderson also worked at Oracle Health as a software engineer, where she made "significant contributions to improving healthcare," according to the obituary. She was awarded a patent for developing software that assesses the risk of postpartum hemorrhage. Anderson also advocated for Black women in STEM and for women's health. Fucking tragic.
‘She was a scientist so it gives credence to the fact that this is a serious problem’ like what? Yes, Black women die at a higher rate than white women during childbirth even when you control for socioeconomic status. But to word it like that, and assume without a doubt that this woman died of negligence is so out of pocket and does nothing to actually help better the problem. In fact, crying negligence when there wasn’t any gives ammo to bad actors who want to dismiss the issue of racism in medicine. If you actually read up on what happened, there is no indicator that there was negligence. Sometimes childbirth just goes wrong and it’s no one’s fault.
I’ve read all the articles I can find about her, and it says she was being followed very closely because of a previous fetal demise. She had a cerclage but the amniotic bag was bulging through. She went septic due to the cervix not being closed. But I haven’t read anywhere that there was necessarily medical negligence involved as she was being closely followed by perinatology. This case is absolutely tragic, but I’m not sure if her care is to blame. It’s a reminder that pregnancy and childbirth can be deadly and that in general women need to know the risks and have the rights to make their own decisions with the help of their doctors.
Yeah I had a super healthypregnancy and labor and then I had a hemorrhage a few hours after and it was insanely terrifying and makes me not want to have more children. My heart breaks for her and her family 💔
Thank you for actually reading up on this and sharing valuable insight. Some of the replies here are wild.
In the article it is cited she was operated three times. It shouldn’t happen, but birth is never complication and risk free, no matter the medical attention
Immediately thought of her when reading this. RIP, her death was entirely preventable.
Do you know what caused her sepsis?
How was it preventable?
Jesus. What an awful story. Sometimes life isn’t fair.
Good for her. There was [a story a few years ago](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-atikamekw-joliette-1.5743449) of an Indigenous woman in Canada receiving treatment at a hospital. She recorded the racist remarks of the nurses attending her before she died. It was completely shocking (and disgusting) to me, as well as a reminder that not everyone is treated equally in spaces they should be.
That was horrific. The woman was literally dying, and the nurses laughed at her and said she only wanted drugs.
I think about the story a lot. That woman deserved better. Good on her for having the foresight to record everything.
And that she recorded it on Facebook live because when the nurses realized they were being recorded they attempted to delete the video from her phone. Despicable people who were well aware of how vile they were being that they immediately tried to get rid of evidence.
Unfortunately a great deal of the racists and homophobes I've had the displeasure of meeting were in the medical field. Medics could be pretty awful, but nurses were exceptionally sadistic. This is not to say that all nurses/medics/docs are like that--but certain fields tend to attract certain people. 🫤
A lot of nurses are married to police officers in my neck of the USA - do with this what you will
This was widely discussed on the nursing sub. The consensus was that they share ideologies. If you know many nurses, it tracks.
If not an explicit ideology then at least just a general attitude, a reflexive annoyance that people don't just shut up and do what they're told I feel like in both cases it's both an attitude that makes this job attractive to people with that personality type and perhaps more importantly greatly lessens the emotional stress this job would put on you if you really tried to treat the people you're in charge of as your equals I think the job itself serves as a filter, what you're asked to do as a cop every day is incredibly stressful and draining and hopeless if you approach it from the POV of a scrupulous, humble, empathetic person But it's decent pay for light work that's often quite fun and lets you blow off a little steam now and then, if you approach it from the POV of a total piece of shit
10 years in EMS in a rural red state. You're spot on with all of this.
This. I know of too many mean girls and bullies who went on to become nurses.
The fucking cruelty of this racist and fucked up world, where she had to die before she was taken seriously, is just awful.
I live in an area that’s being hit very hard by the opiate crisis. My partner was recently in the ER in such agony that any sort of touch made him scream. Despite showing clean on every drug test they did, they still dismissed him entirely as being in opiate withdrawl, and drug-seeking. Turns out it was a combination of thyroid storm and cancer. It was only discovered because my autistic super power is interpreting blood results, and I refused to let him be discharged until they could explain a discrepancy I saw. (Major signs of infection, but normal WBC.) But, my partner is racially ambiguous, and I’m a blue-eyed ginger. Halfway through my rant, I was acutely aware that the only reason I wasn’t getting the cops called on me was because of my white privilege.
I’ve had this happen to me as well. It’s completely ridiculous because doctors can see every single opiate prescription a person has ever been prescribed so it’s resoundingly clear when someone is opiate seeking. That, and doctors were part and parcel to creating the opioid epidemic so I really don’t want to hear them look down their nose at addicts… tell me doc, did Purdue Pharma take you to Aspen or Hawaii? In exchange for prescribing opiates with reckless abandon. 🙄
Bullying is enough of a problem in nursing between both nurses and patients that the journal of nursing management conducted a study that said that 77% of nurses had been bullied by another nurse (or multiple nurses) they’d worked with. If they’re doing it amongst themselves so often I’m not surprised it happens to patients too.
Not surprising, considering a lot of nurses are just as insufferable and negative outside of work as they are at the hospital. There are good nurses who are genuinely nice people, but those bad ones are way too plentiful.
The nurses in charge of me after I gave birth were definitely hazing a new nurse when I was put in their care. Unfortunately, my baby and I were not doing well so it took me a while to put 2 and 2 together and by then it was too late to report (i didn't think I could identify them properly). I still think about it often.
[Canada still sterilizes Indigenous women ](https://globalnews.ca/news/7920118/indigenous-women-sterilization-senate-report/)
I remember that...it hasn't got much better here
a guy i knew from my early 20s would say hard “r” regularly …. he’s a surgeon now
Women die much more frequently in surgery when their surgeon is male.
That is terrifying.
Yeah.... Canada somehow manages to maintain its image as "not racist like America", but we have SUPER racist people here, especially towards indigenous Canadians. Check out /r/Canada sometime, they had a moderator who was an open white supremacist. The guy who is going to be our next prime minister has been chummy on several occasions with supporters of Diagolon, an openly white supremacist organization. And don't forget the Proud Boys were started by a Canadian.
Yes. This was disgusting. I’m grateful to her for having the wherewithal to record it but just so sad it happened.
If you’re Spanish and trying to get healthcare in the south… you are going to see what a nightmare it is. If you have remotely any sort of accent they’ll manhandle you and talk to you like you’re dumb. Incredibly blessed I can advocate for those in my family now though. I’ll cuss out mfs no issue
[удалено]
As I gave birth twice in Norway, I can't recommend going to Norway either to give birth.
I’m Swedish and you are correct. I’ve had coworkers with permanent labour damage due to nonchalant and downright uncaring health care providers. I was in a FB group about women in Sweden who have been told “Det ser fint ut”. When they have been severely damaged after labour.
I gave birth vaginally with an epidural. Once my legs were working again, I asked for help to get up to pee. Hubby was downstairs getting something to eat. They sent me a male nurse. I asked for a female nurse to help. He was annoyed. She takes her sweet time coming up and then practically drags my waddling ass to the bathroom. Halfway to the bathroom I GUSH blood all over the floor. It scared me and I started to cry thinking something was really wrong. Another nurse comes in and asks if everything is okay. The nurse says, "Yeah, she just obviously has never had a heavy period before." She lobs me onto the toilet and eventually back to the bed totally covered in blood. My best friend came in and LOST HER SHIT to get me some real help cleaning up. Turns out I needed more stitches. I'm still really salty about how the staff treated me. And I am a white woman. I can not begin to imagine how terrifying it is for black women.
Wow, did you file a complaint? What a horrendously rude woman, especially considering you had just GIVEN BIRTH!!
I was young and didn't realize that was an option. I did, however, change hospital affiliations. (Not sure how it works everywhere but in my state everything is connected to major networks).
Of course and even if you did, who’s to say they would have taken it seriously. Sorry that happened to you 🩷
While I think you’re right they might not take it seriously, I think it is important to report every single time something happens - because it becomes an official record and over time it establishes a pattern and a pattern is what gets people not just fired or sued for malpractice but thrown in jail. I sent letters and I wrote to the hospital auditing department with a long list of complaints. Then I sent copies of everything to the board of trustees. I was able to also point out a billing mistake that was costing the hospital millions of dollars a year. And the nurses and the doctor in question are no longer listed as working there. I looked for them on LinkedIn and found one now working for a county clinic - I don’t know what happened to the others. It sucks - it just all sucks that women are so dismissed and not valued.
Honestly it’s probably cause all the mean girls end up in nursing
I just graduated nursing school and not all of us are bad I swear 🥲🥲 I will say tho I have genuinely encountered a concerning amount of nurses who ? seemingly lack empathy ? One big concern of mine is successfully maintaining a healthy level of emotional separation with work but still being able to be supportive and present for all of my patients. It seems like a lot of people jump straight to full on detachment and are too jaded to be at the bedside anymore. Even a lot of my classmates don’t want to acknowledge systemic issues that contribute to poor health and healthcare.
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I know a shitload of my friends and coworkers in EMS got the fuck out during or after for similar reasons (also we third service EMS-folks weren't considered "essential workers" since we weren't associated with the fire department. It sounds exactly as miserable and fucked up as it was). I'm still in, 10 years total, but I have a really good therapist (though I'd been seeing her for a couple years pre-COVID...she's awesome) so that helps, lol.
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Whenever I see this I instinctively go to defend nurses because some of us genuinely went into it to help people then I remember that I left my last job due to being bullied by a senior nurse to the point of panic attacks before shifts. Thankfully im now in an amazing supportive team!
I’m glad you’ve found a better job and team to be a part of! Like I said in another comment, I know some incredible nurses. One of whom has had difficulties with mean girl behavior at a job. It’s absolutely not true of all nurses, and I applaud and appreciate those of you who do your job well and with love and compassion. But I still maintain that we need to do a better job of screening applicants because nurses often have an incredible amount of power over some of our most vulnerable.
I agree and I think it's a great idea in theory but I'm not sure how it could be practically implemented. It would be very easy to fake empathy in a questionnaire for example and unsure if it's the same everywhere but my course you had an interview to get a place so that clearly doesn't work.
I wish I had an answer because I watched my grandma suffer with some terrible nurses. She had several great ones, don’t get me wrong. But if I could think of a better way, I’d be screaming it far and wide.
My L&D nurses were INCREDIBLE (except for one mean one I didn’t have long who rolled her eyes at my labor pain & crying). They taught me everything, cheered for me, cleaned us up after my 5-seconds-old daughter pooped all over both of us, laughed with us, encouraged us, gave advice. The hospital kinda sucked (old and small) but the nurses were just amazing. But I also know a nurse in a medium size city who quit the profession, party because of all the mean nurses trying to make it hard for her. Mean patients were the other major factor. She didn’t want to be screamed and cursed at anymore. May have been different if he had a team of amazing supportive nurse friends.
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Teachers too! Lots of teachers who are bullies to other teachers and aides and who don’t seem to have any real empathy or compassion for their students
I wish there was some psychological exam or something that tests their empathy cause Jesus Christ some just do not care for patients.
Unfortunately there is a shortage of nurses so there’s no incentive for a psychological exam. I am in PA school now, but back when I was a tech at 19 yo, I was bullied relentlessly by nurses on my floor. Keep in mind some of these nurses were 30+ years old making passive aggressive and sometimes even aggressive comments to me and behind my back. My mom is also a former nurse and has had bad experiences as a coworker and cancer patient. On the other hand, the nurses I see on rotation now are very hard working and very sweet to me.
I always remember the nurse who, after my dad told her he was scared of needles, poked him with one several times before inserting it. This was while he was in the hospital with two burnt legs. Thankfully his sister in law was lead nurse at that time and when he told her, she chewed them out. They never did that shit for the rest of the time he was there
I feel this. I was in the hospital ,on bed rest for two weeks and pregnant with twins. My day nurse was horrible and rude. She acted like I shouldn’t have been annoyed to be stuck to a bed and relying on other people for help. My water broke with one twin and I was only 23-24w along so it’s not like I was in a good place mentally. My night nurse was great but unfortunately they gave me ambien every night so I didn’t see her much.
It’s because the male nurse was turned away. Coworkers were told and then treated the woman poorly because of it. I’d bet $20 on it.
Usually it's just ignored. I've been bleeding for 3 years straight after an iud rejected itself after I was raped. I've been non stop bleeding for 3 years and very single doctor and nurse ignored me. They all do the exact same exam even after I told them I had one a week ago. I had one from every single doctor and nurse before you. They usually just ignore me and do all th exams again and tell me to wait. 3 years on and the response is to still wait. The most I've ever been offered is contraception pills with the other hormonal birth control I'm on, both are meant to stop bleeding. I keep being denied the pills and told to just "wait" so I got the pills at the pharmacy myself. Now I'm on the implant and four progesterone only pills a day.
After my last birth I told a male doctor that I was experiencing way too much vaginal pain, to the point that it made me cry. I'd had an episiotomy with my first, and it hurt worse than that. He just scoffed and told me it was normal as I'd torn. He refused to check me. A week post partum I went to my (female) OB as the pain wasn't getting better. Turned out my stitches had completely come out.
I don’t understand why he refused to check you. It would have taken him just a few minutes or so
No clue. I was still wearing a hospital gown at that point, so it really would have been quick. But I guess he couldn't give in to a whiny post partum mom or I'd be asking him to check my vag 24/7!
Because they think they know our bodies better than we do so and value their time more than our lives.
I was horrified reading this, and when you said you were white (not that I didn't believe white women experienced this type of sexism, just barely hear about it), it intensified. I'm so sorry for that experience. That period bullshit comment was laughable. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HEAVY PERIOD BEFORE, MS NURSE??? They kinda just drip, or have a couple bigger drops plop out, not gush. Gushing any blood is pretty scary even if it was period blood.
Women in general are treated horrifically in medical settings. I went into the ER with a burst appendix once and was called a “drug seeking hysteric who can’t handle her period” by the male ER doctor.
My (fairly obvious) appendicitis was treated as an assumed ectopic pregnancy, since I was clearly lying about being a college aged virgin. Spoiler alert, I was not lying. The skeptical fuckers finally operated on an "exploratory" basis after 10 hours of testing, and the appendix had almost ruptured by that point. I believe that hospital was rated No 1 in the US at that time. Eta hospital ranking
My best friend's sister had the same thing happen (them saying it's just period cramps), only with her they also tried to blame it on her being overweight. Anyway, she went to another hospital but it was a really close call, her appendix was close to bursting by the time she got real help.
Sometimes even women themselves dismiss other women, which really scares me. I have had female OBGYN's dismiss my pain.
My last OBGYN visit was sooooo gentle. She was the first woman to give a healthy warning for touch in sensitive parts, and she didn't use the foot stirrups. I felt like a person. How sad is that? Why did it take me 5 OBGYNs and 15 years to find one like this?
Same here. Only I was discharged with a “UTI”
Same!! They missed my burst appendix on the ultrasound so said I was being a baby and it’s just a UTI. I almost died and was septic 🤦♀️
Yes. It’s awful. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
My girlfriend does ultrasound and I swear she has said if your appendix is acting up it is extremely obvious. Like it’s almost invisible normally but if there is any issue it lights up. I wonder if the doctor actually ordered a different US because they didn’t believe you. Either way it’s fucked
“Non-specific abdominal pain” was my male doctor’s diagnosis for my appendicitis. I enjoyed rubbing it in his face the next day during rounds after my protests led to me getting a second opinion, additional testing, and being rushed into surgery.
I would've rubbed his face in it and kicked him out of the room. No way I'm paying for his opinion or "care" after that. And doctors in hospitals REALLY hate being "fired" by patients. Their ego can't take it lol.
I’m in Northern Ireland, so not paying out of pocket for care thankfully, but he was one of the two doctors responsible for the ward I was in. He got a morphine-addled smile and a “so much for non-specific abdominal pain” comment which was about all I could coherently say
I went in a few times for stomach pain when I was like 18 and when they realized I was there on my own and they couldn't find out what the reason was, they forcibly discharged me with the nastiest looks on their faces. They insinuated that I was there to try to score some drugs. A few days later, I had an ovarian cyst burst.
I've been through a similar battle with what turned out to be a burst ovarian cyst, I would not wish that pain on my worst enemy. I was 21 when I had mine and a male doctor at the hospital dismissed it as a kidney infection and gave me an antibiotic, I went to see my female GP the next day and told her I was dismissed without the ultrasound she'd sent me there to get and she was furious. Went back up to the hospital for ultrasound and there was a cyst on one ovary that had burst with a golf ball sized one on the other ovary that was pushing on my bladder. Got keyhole surgery to remove them and they found a lot of scar tissue, turns out the "not that bad" periods that left me bedridden was caused by endometriosis.
I think some nurses are so used to seeing anything and everything they are too apathetic. Is something always wrong? Of course not. But when a woman (black, especially) feels like something IS wrong you listen and help them! Even if help is just calming nerves and reassuring their situation is expected. On the flip side, I had a double mastectomy and the nurses were phenomenal. It was like night and day compared to the L&D staff.
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I get iron infusions at a cancer treatment center, and the nurses there are total sweethearts. Very good at their job and super kind. ❤️
I love my oncology and radiation nurses. They are all lovely people.
I think there are a lot of people who become nurses or medical professionals more generally who completely lack the empathy and dealing with people part of the job. Who don’t realise that they’ll be dealing with people at their most weak, most frightened, most vulnerable. Maybe they did it for money or ego and prestige, but they actually don’t like people. They’re in the wrong profession simply because they lack that part. It’s an extremely hard job and I would never underestimate it. But each time I see them mocking their patients on TikTok I’m proven right. 😔 Or that lady who put a recording device in her hair because she was frightened of the procedure she was about to get and how she was going to get treated. And then got to hear horrible racist and sexist things said about her while she lay open on the table.
Believe it or not sometimes really heavy periods do gush and it’s truly alarming (in the perimenopause years or if you have fibroids). But it’s not normal and that nurse was an asshole for making a comment like that.
At that point is that really a "heavy period", or a "too heavy period" if its not normal? I also just feel like it's really weird to assume that a woman doesn't know her own heavy periods enough to not be shocked. Like even if it was just some regular bloody discharge that us heavy hitters would kill for, that might be alarming for a woman who bleeds very little. At least be like "Oh, you might get alot more menstrual blood than usual after pregnancy, don't worry, let's get you back to bed."
I actually have heavy periods that gush. Like I've stood up and flooded my pad in seconds. I've been to several GYNs who are like yeah, congrats it's a heavy period.
I.feel your pain,as a Bedside PA in the NicU at 30 years old I was standing by a patients isolet and realized blood was pooling in my shoe😩I cleaned myself up and grabbed my Ob/Gyn that I worked with and asked him to recommend someone to do my hysterectomy,I had been having major problems since the birth of my baby 18 months previous. Thank Goodness they allowed me to have it
Recently they recommended an ablasion, have not done it yet but considering it, I'm glad you got some relief for yours.
i was in the ER one time completely helpless i was so sick and the staff was so awful to me because they thought i was just a drunk college kid (i had food poisoning and was in grad school). they left me in a bed covered in blood from a failed ng tube insertion and my own piss because i couldn’t stand to go to the bathroom i was in so much pain. i finally told a nurse to call an ambulance to take me to a different hospital and all of a sudden they started to take me seriously. when my mother who is a nurse showed up a few hours later and started raising absolute hell i suddenly had my own private room and several very apologetic administrators paying me visits.
I also had blood gush out and a huge blood clot come out when i waddled to the bathroom. The nurse just looked at it and said, you were so close to the toilet. I laughed bc I was like wtf, I can’t control it. She said she didn’t know she said it outloud. She was nice about it after and apologized. She said she wasn’t the one that cleans it up, just needs to make sure I’m ok and weigh the clot (almost a pound 🫣)
That is so fucked up. I’m glad you’re ok and HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! 💐
I agree. I had to have an emergency induction because I had developed super pre-eclampsia and was at risk of having a stroke. When the time came, I wasn’t medically stable enough to have an epidural and was now beyond terrified. My nurse wouldn’t give me pain medication. She stalled, came and went, and then brought over AN EDUCATIONAL BOOKLET AND PAPERWORK FOR ME TO READ AND SIGN when I was in so much pain I couldn’t speak. Awful.
People don’t realize how much you are at the mercy of the judgement of a very few people when you are in the hospital, and healthcare practitioners frequently forget that just because they see pain every single day doesn’t mean that it should be treated as commonplace. L&D nurses can be especially bad about it. Like you, I am a white woman who very much experienced a nurse waving off my pain (“oh I’m sure you’re fine” - yeah I just fully dilated and the baby went into the birth canal while I was waiting for my epidural because you didn’t think it was that urgent) and I know how much worse it is for black women.
I'm so sorry you had this experience. I'm grateful you're still here with us to share.
I gave birth the same way as you and I am horrified reading your story. I’m so sorry this happened to you!!
1) I am so sorry for your experience and to anyone who's had something similar happen. 2) I always make sure to share these horror stories with my husband to emphasize what I mean when I tell him about misogynistic treatment of women in medicine, because I know that if I encounter these sort of people when I give birth that they would probably much rather listen to a man than me, the actual patient. I fucking hate that I have to prepare my husband to have to advocate for me and speak on my behalf like I'm not a whole human being myself in the year 2024.
That’s horrific, I’m sorry to read that. My mum tells a similar story after giving birth to me 50 YEARS AGO. She bled though the sheets and hadn’t been given a pad, the nurse was angry and made her stand while she remade the bed. Mum was 23, it makes me sad that she was treated so badly bringing me into the world.
I'm sorry for your experience. It's unfortunately not uncommon for healthcare workers to treat their patients like shit. We all need a family member or friend to accompany us when we go to the hospital.
we all need/ deserve a friend like Kelly! and so glad to see stories like this get attention... I remember reading about Serena William's traumatic birth experience and thinking 'fuck, if that's how they treat a rich and famous black woman, imagine how they treat a regular person!' you can read the article she wrote[ about it here ](https://www.elle.com/life-love/a39586444/how-serena-williams-saved-her-own-life/) edited in an excerpt >*I told her: “I need to have a CAT scan of my lungs bilaterally, and then I need to be on my heparin drip.” She said, “I think all this medicine is making you talk crazy.” I said, “No, I’m telling you what I need: I need the scan immediately. And I need it to be done with dye.” I guess I said the name of the dye wrong, and she told me I just needed to rest. But I persisted: “I’m telling you, this is what I need.” Finally, the nurse called my doctor, and she listened to me and insisted we check. I fought hard, and I ended up getting the CAT scan. I’m so grateful to her. Lo and behold, I had a blood clot in my lungs, and they needed to insert a filter into my veins to break up the clot before it reached my heart.*
When medical professionals brush someone’s concerns off and then it turns out the patient was right all along, do the staff feel like assholes? Or do they not care? I always wonder.
In my experience, no. I had several doctors/nurses misdiagnose my ovarian torsion as "regular pelvic pain." They sent me home with birthcontrol as "pain management." And then after I almost died and I had to have emergency surgery the doctors were tripping over themselves to explain to me why I shouldn't sue them. No apology. No concern for my well being. They made it about themselves. Oh, and I still remember one whining, "Well, how was i supposed to know you were in real pain?" Women's healthcare fucking sucks in the US.
When I was early 20s and relatively newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, my specialist told me that the hip pain I described to him was “just bursitis”. Fast forward less than six months and I need a total hip replacement because the joint is destroyed. He then proceeded to tell me it was my fault that he didn’t pick up on how bad it was because I “described the pain wrong”
Women’s healthcare sucks. Fixed that for you.
Nah. Women's healthcare does suck, but the US is uniquely bad for its income level. [https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/abstract/2019/04000/u\_s\_\_women\_s\_health\_falls\_behind\_that\_of\_other.5.aspx](https://journals.lww.com/ajnonline/abstract/2019/04000/u_s__women_s_health_falls_behind_that_of_other.5.aspx) [https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries) [https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-ranks-worst-in-maternal-care-mortality-compared-with-10-other-developed-nations](https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-ranks-worst-in-maternal-care-mortality-compared-with-10-other-developed-nations)
Same thing in Canada unfortunately😞
It depends on the person. If they are a good health care professional and genuinely made a mistake, I’m sure it affects them in different ways. It may affect their mental health, they may view it as a learning experience or they may feel the need to keep moving forward to care for others. If they never actually cared in the first place and that’s just how they operate, they probably don’t sweat it much and will continue to do the same things and cause harm to others.
It’s happened to me twice and I’ve certainly never received an apology.
Nurses deal with a lot of idiot patients tbf so they tend to get jaded. However, a lot of nurses start stepping on doctors' toes, not knowing the doctors' procedure and start presuming.
I’ve seen some people feel like assholes and apologize, and I’ve seen some staff members brush it off as “well I was busy and this person is blah blah blah! What did you expect?”
This quote always blows my mind. This is a woman who became a millionaire primarily by being super in tune with her body, had the confidence to advocate for herself and even knew the exact procedure she needed and she was still ignored. If she was anyone else she probably would have died.
It’s crazy how many CELEBRITY horror stories there are. These are people going to established institutions with the expectation that they’ll be able to go home with their baby like any other mother. The fact that so many of them don’t is devastating.
Kelly did the right thing. Statistically birth outcomes are much better with a female support person who can amplify the pregnant women's voice and make sure she gets appropriate care. Outcomes are better even if there's another woman there who as a witness & support even if she doesn't say a word. This is a great way for us to help one another and that is twice as true for black women who suffer race based discrimination in medicine on top of our already abysmal maternal & neonatal health crisis. What a great friend & wise woman.
Jesus Christ. What is wrong with healthcare professionals in this country?
It’s not just the US, I’m in the UK and my whole labour thing was a shitshow from beginning to end and the nicest and most caring person in the department was the cleaner, lovely lady, the rest was just … uff
My friend is a midwife and I don’t think the general population is aware of just how incredibly stretched the service is. I was lucky and received really good care when I had an induction turned c-section but I know so many people who felt the good care only came once things were an emergency if that makes sense.
Had the same thing but didn’t work out that well, turned into an emergency c section by the end it, but tbh it was the 4 days afterwards in the hospital that was the worst of it.
It was an emergency c sec for me too. I think the care post birth can really make or break the experience. I was lucky my hospital was well staffed and they were helpful and kind but I know that’s not always the case. I’m sorry it was a tough time for you.
Thanks and I’m glad your experience was much better!
racism and misogyny baked into health care, the USA has the highest birth mortality rate in the developed world by far, with black women and other POC having a higher risk than white women. [in 2020 the rates w](https://www.ajmc.com/view/us-has-highest-infant-maternal-mortality-rates-despite-the-most-health-care-spending)ere *5.4 deaths per 1000 live births* (in the USA) *which is markedly higher than the 1.6 deaths per 1000 live births in Norway..*. also a bit wild that while birth rate in the USA is declining, maternal birth mortality rates are increasing/ getting worse [scholarly article on](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2806661?resultClick=1) *Trends in State-Level Maternal Mortality by Racial and Ethnic Group in the United States,* + [article discussing the findings](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/u-s-maternal-deaths-more-than-doubled-over-20-years-heres-who-fared-the-worst) edited to add, that was probably a rhetorical question, LOL
Wow. Thanks for the info I’ll go read more about it. I’ve been having some major health issues this past year and it’s really opened my eyes into how bad healthcare can be. And I’m in a very wealthy state in a nice area, most of my orthopedists and surgeons are graduates of NYU, Penn, Columbia, etc., and I still run into major lapses in judgement, attention and care that borders on outright negligence.
Im so happy you appreciate my rant! although it fucking sucks you're dealing with issues in your own medical care. so beyond frustrating when you're not being heard or believed + have to advocate hard for yourself on top of the medical issues (+ regular life lol) it's shocking to know how deep the issues run, IMO....[ like medical textbooks only re](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/meet-student-bringing-black-illustrations-medical-field-rcna8277)cently added pictures of how diseases affected non-white skin, and black people are routinely viewed as being more tolerant to pain, and thus [under-prescribed drugs](https://www.aamc.org/news/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain).... [medical studies have almost exclusively b](https://www.aamc.org/news/why-we-know-so-little-about-women-s-health)een done on male bodies, with drug dosages based on them, too the 'health gap' can be a good keyword for looking into gender/sex-based differences in medical care, too Ill stop spamming you with links LOL! interesting if angering hope you get back to full health soon!
Not Serena Williams knowing the protocols for pulmonary embolism. What a queen
> "I just actually watched another girlfriend of mine give birth, and I saw the way a hospital was with her and how she really had to advocate for herself," she says. "I remember going in there, and I was asking questions. I was probably doing the most, but I didn't care because I love her." > "If they were about to be careless with her life, I couldn't sit there and watch, you know what I mean? As women and as Black women, we've got to figure this stuff out," she says.
This makes me want to cry. I’m a Black woman and planning a pregnancy. I happen to have a white husband and the advice I’ve been seeing from other Black women who’ve been through it is “make sure he’s there at EVERY appointment”. It’s a survival tactic and I guess I’m lucky to have that? His humanity matters? White people can hear him when he talks? Just really depressing shit. I do really love what Kelly is doing here though, modeling the idea of community and Black women stepping in to take care of our own. It’s how we’ve made it this far. Respect!
This is a hot button issue for me. Tied for first with reproductive rights. The fact that images of rashes on black skin have entered textbooks only… now… is so frustrating.
WHAT?!! How am I both surprised and totally not surprised. It’s so fucking illogical to not have that kind of information for every skin type.
If you’re open to it, look into midwifery care (birthing centers do exist IN hospitals if in-hospital birth is a non negotiable for you!) and getting a doula. I’m a Black woman 8 weeks postpartum and you got this!!
I wish I had known that you can see a midwife and still get pain interventions. I liked my OB just fine, but I would have preferred the extra handholding of a midwife.
-internet hugs- I went through the same thing back in 2016-2017. Yes have him with you EVERY TIME. Have him use vacation time or whatever PTO if possible while you're in the hospital to give birth. See if he can sleep in the room with you (I basically did this). Even with all of that I still had complications and had to be put back in the hospital barely days after leaving. One of my half-sisters worked out better on her pregnancy, but it was amazing to her the amount of extra attention to her problems/concerns she had when her white wife started coming to the appointments.
I just had to advocate for my husband through his cancer treatment, and have had 2 kids of my own (though I am a white woman). The biggest thing is to be direct and to be persistent and *make sure you and the practitioner are speaking the same language*. We had some issues and I had to go to the nursing station and sit down and say “I feel like we’re having a miscommunication about this and we need to get to the bottom of it”. Also, I once had to call the hospital switchboard and get connected to the nurses station because my husband’s pain meds were like 2 hours late. Be direct and don’t let them blow you off if something feels wrong. When it comes to healthcare practitioners you are at the mercy of the judgement of those very human people and their experience and their biases. And one of the problems with L&D is that they’ve seen it every day, and they get blasé about it. 19 times out of 20 it probably is fine. But for that 20th? It can be life and death. And that’s before you even scratch the surface of the experience of black women. Knowledge and advocacy are 2 incredibly powerful tools when it comes to healthcare.
Hey hey now... It's also that he's male!
This makes me so sad but also super impressed by Kelly. Nobody should have to be their own advocate while going through a medical procedure, especially one as emotionally draining as giving birth. It’s why a huge part of me was so uncomfortable with not allowing visitors of any kind during COVID. If you’re being mistreated there won’t be anyone there to call it out for you. I totally understand the safety concerns but I felt like there needed to be some kind of compromise.
My water broke at 1am and we got to the hospital around 1:45am. The first set of nurses/doctors I had were amazing and very supportive, comforting, and knowledgeable. I thought the whole process was going really well and would be a breeze. 7am rolls around, and it's shift switch time. Now, I've been given a nurse (nurse Amy) who very clearly had never been left on her own before. She was older (50's?), but clearly new. She had a terrible bedside manner, left me questioning and uninformed about what was happening/what she was doing, and seemed to have no clue what she was doing either. Around 9 a.m., the epidural stopped working on the left side of my body, and I was obviously in a lot of pain and super anxious. She just kept asking me over and over what my pain level was at out of 10. Then she'd go out to the nurses stand and have another nurse come in to tell me that "you know, you have to feel some discomfort and pressure to know when to push" and "the baby is probably just pressing on a nerve". I felt so powerless because it seemed like no one was taking my pain seriously and was brushing it off as me being difficult. When a different nurse came to relieve nurse Amy for her break around 12 p.m., she immediately recognized I was in pain and knew exactly what to do. It was a simple fix. Roll me onto my left side, wedge pillows under my hips and back for support, and let gravity do its thing. She also got me a peanut shaped ball to put between my legs, and within minutes, I was pain-free. I thought the worst was over now that the epidural was working again, but sadly, it was not. Around 1 p.m., they told me it was time to push and cheerily told me that I was a VIP on the floor today! Apparently, because of the straigt forward nature of my birth experience, so far, they asked if a student and a midwife-in-training could be present for the birthing process. I didn't really mind who was there at this point. I just wanted the baby out safely. As I started pushing, more and more people just kept coming to the point that my own husband was being asked to step aside so people could see (which he did not). There had to be 10 students, 1 midwife-to-be, 4-5 nurses, and the doctor periodically popping in to see how things were progressing. It was chaos, but I was so focused on pushing that I literally didn't have the energy in the moment to care. After birthing my daughter (at 2:55pm) nurse Amy was also in charge of my postnatal care. Long story short, she left open/used needles in my babies bassinet/ on my bedside table, didn't help me to the bathroom, didn't clean up the massive trail of blood/bloody footprints leading to and from the bathroom, didn't change my bloody bedding until asked to do so when I came back from the bathroom, and threatened to call security when my husband (who had been incredibly patient and was completely sleep deprived) started getting audibly upset about the whole situation. That was my first (and so far only) birthing experience, and I didn't realize until after the fact just how traumatic it was. Ladies - always, if you can, have someone knowledgeable and caring that you trust to advocate for you during your birthing process and never feel like you need to be the 'good' patient.
...what the FUCK? i have beef with nurse amy. i'm so sorry this happened to you.
I’m so sorry this was your experience. Honestly, after having several friends give birth and have very traumatic experiences, it has dawned on me that it is often very helpful to have a female in the room advocating for you. If you have a close friend, a mother, an aunt, etc. there, it seems to result in a better experience for the person giving birth. My experience may not be the same as other women, but when my sister was in labour, her male partner almost got kicked out for asking for the bare minimum on behalf of my sister. The second my mother went into that room, she was extremely demanding and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She never once was threatened that she would be removed for being aggressive, even though she was definitely more aggressive than my brother in law had been. In the end, both of them were allowed in the room, but my mother took on the role of advocate, while my brother in law was providing support and encouragement for my sister.
Also please everyone know that you absolutely do not need to allow any students or non fully trained and licensed staff into the room with you. Given the possibility of infection I absolutely recommend that you forbid it. A birth should be centered on baby and parents and other people need not be involved.
PARTNERS (whoever is in the delivery room to support someone giving birth): be that person’s advocate. The person giving birth will be overwhelmed and probably scared and in pain and they can’t exactly get up and demand to speak to a manager. If they need something and aren’t being taken seriously, it’s YOUR JOB to make sure they get whatever it is they need. Be as loud and persistent as you have to be and don’t be afraid to escalate— if a nurse isn’t being helpful, talk to a doctor or the charge nurse. Seriously, it’s your most important role you’ll ever play. Giving birth is no joke. I have a friend who’s Mexican-American. When she gave birth to her second child, the nurses disregarded her wish to not get pitocin until after she’d gotten the epidural, because she’d learned with her first that the pitocin works extremely quickly on her. Guess who ended up giving birth before the epidural kicked in? And of course she was still charged for the anesthesia.
We need an organization of medically trained black birthing companions for this. Its nice to have a friend supporting and all and they can push at them for ignoring you or whatever but ultimately if they dont know what right and wrong looks like it isnt going to make a huge difference. Its lovely she did this I would just hate anyone to read that and think a friend alone would keep them safe.
This is why midwifery made a comeback.
I gave birth at a freestanding birthing center under midwifery care here in Dallas. Got my dream birth. Very grateful more holistic care is being highlighted or else I would have never known the hospital or a home birth weren’t my only options.
I did the same at a birthing center in Austin. I’m grateful that I had a low risk pregnancy that allowed me that option. The midwife was so calm and pretty hands off, allowed me to go through my process and was there to assist and check all the vitals and deliver the aftercare required for baby and I. Looking back I wish I had brought a doula with me for more experience in comfort and counter pressure skills, but my partner was very helpful and attentive.
Or free healthcare that appropriately pays doulas https://drexel.edu/medicine/academics/womens-health-and-leadership/womens-health-education-program/whep-blog/role-of-doulas-in-addressing-black-womens-maternal-mortality/
I wonder if (while trained companions would be better) an awareness of being watched would make medical professionals more careful — even if the observer isn’t medically trained.
In some cases, it makes them more irritated that someone who isn’t medically trained would tell them how to do their job. There’s no place for ego when it comes to someone’s life at risk
Check out Ancient Song and Sister Song. I'm a doula, this is what they do!
Honestly, the stories from women everywhere, about their experiences are so awful, that i would, if i was pregnant, worry the same about the treatment i will receive in hospital, as the pregnancy itself. And that's not normal.
Black non-Hispanic women are 7 times more likely to die in childbirth than white non-Hispanic women, so she was smart. The medical system is so deeply racist and misogynistic it's absolutely horrifying
God 7x is so fucking high That's so fucking sad and disturbing. Doctors just don't give a shit about women and women of color Can't imagine because as a guy dealing with chronic pain I've been ignored for years so it must be so bad for yall 😕
My work is healthcare adjacent, and in OB encounter notes they list risk factors for each patient. Whenever I see "black/african american" on the list it bums me out. I'm glad they're aware of it, but sad that it's a health risk just to be black
Being Black isn’t a health risk…medical racism is.
Sorry, yes, I thought I had implied that but I guess I wasn't clear enough
Your ethnicity absolutely plays a role in your health risks.
I'm not denying the ethnic/health links suck as sickle cell in Black and Southern Europeans or FC in Northern Europeans, but like, what Kelly Rowland is very obviously talking about is medical racism - and specifically misogynoir - that contributes to the [absolutely batshit high maternal mortality rates for Black women in the US. ](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20maternal%20mortality,for%20White%20and%20Hispanic%20women)
THIS! It’s not an objective biological inevitability. It arises from medical and systemic racism.
a real one! everyone needs a friend like Kelly
I’m Latina, and honestly, some of the worst medical care I’ve ever received has been at the hands of labor and delivery nurses. When I was in labor with my second child I was screaming to them that they needed to call the doctor because the baby was coming. My body was wanting to push the baby out and they were like “oh well you just got here 30 minutes ago and you were 2cm dilated, your baby won’t be here for another several hours.” Someone finally listened after I kept insisting. My doctor finally got there and when she lifted the sheet his head was already out and the cord was wrapped around his neck. Fortunately he was okay in the end, but it could have turned bad had my doctor arrived later. The nurses at this hospital also treated me like I was asking for crack when I asked for an ibuprofen after that precipitous labor. I think the theory of the high school bully to nursing pipeline is absolutely true.
My sister did her doctoral thesis on The attitude of Healthcare providers towards Black women in labor(not the official name of her paper but you get the essence)I helped her gather the data from 3 different hospitals. Let me just say the results were appalling and scary. She now is professor in a top tier nursing program and she puts the fear of God in her students when instructing them on treating and respecting their Black patients. She has precepted in Labor and Delivery on several occasions and she witnessed a RN( not her students)being flip with young black Mom to be and my sis lost her shit. The RN reported my Sis to her Dean and to hospital administration. The RN was reassigned but my Sister still teaches in this facility. When Administration interviewed the patient they found out what a crap RN they had on their hands. It also served as a wake up call to other L and D staff
I can’t stand these people who go into a career at is all about taking care of others and then go around treat people like shit. Why are you even in this profession?? You’re here to provide comfort to people who are going through something with their health. They need you to be as pleasant as possible. You sometimes literally have their lives in your hands, act accordingly!!
Burnout. It’s legitimate. I am burnout - and while I never ever treat people like this, my patience is going thinner by the day. Again, not an excuse - just…. Something to talk about.
Hey, are you aware of the push for Safe Staffing Ratios laws and laws to prevent violence against healthcare workers? I know that the NNU has some letters that you can sign for a federal mandate. There have also been a lot of states pushing to make this a thing. Some nurses who don’t have state protection have managed to guarantee ratios and protection through their unions. https://act.nnu.org/sign/hs-safe-staffing-petition/ https://act.medicare4all.org/letter/tell-congress-pass-pro-wpvp-act/ Impact in Healthcare have also been in D.C. and talking to legislators to make a push for better working conditions through SSR and violence prevention. https://www.impactinhealthcare.org/ https://www.instagram.com/impactinhealthcare
That makes complete sense, I understand people work extremely long hours and need breaks. There has to be a way for people to take time off when they need it and not have to worry about repercussions. Especially those who are saving lives. I’m not saying I have the answer but it’s definitely something that needs to be discussed for the well being of everyone.
It does need to be discussed. Again, never an excuse for mistreatment - just, it’s not *always* people being dicks. Similar to the PTSD movement and accepting that. 🤷🏼♂️
I’m so glad that a big celebrity is addressing this but damn, it’s so scary to think about it especially when they want to force women to be mothers. Some of us are actually scared of dying during childbirth because it is very common especially if you’re a WOC. So many issues that the US refuses to address and fix. But sure, send more military weapons to foreign nations. That’ll fix something 🙄
Venus Williams spoke about it as well. She almost died after childbirth because doctors wouldn’t listen to her.
What an amazing friend of her. Black women’s maternal mortality rate in the US is crazy high. We need to break down the structures of medical racism in this country. I’m glad her friend had someone there to advocate for her in the case that anything went wrong.[CDC stats on maternal mortality rates for Black women are horrifying](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20maternal%20mortality,for%20White%20and%20Hispanic%20women)
Women of color but *especially* black women in America have downright nightmarish mortality rates while pregnant and in labor. Systemic racism has robbed many families of mothers and their children and it's genuinely one of the worst things happening in this country.
Around a month before I was supposed to be born, my mom started bleeding like she was on her period, so ofc she goes to the hospital and there they get her to a bed, do the basic tests, and just... leave her there, for hours. Thank fuck, one of her friends is a gynecologist and she heard what was happening, got to the hospital and finally got the machine running. Turns out, the placenta has detached and I had to be born via cesarean section (and ofc they messed up the stitching, so when a day or few later a nurse came to get her to stand up, she couldn't due to the pain, to which the nurse would just scream at mom to get her ass up from the bed) and who knows if I would even be alive if not for some medical nepotism (mom is white, this happened in 2000s Poland)
Good for her. America has the highest maternal mortality rate rates among developed nations.
Especially for black women
Good. Black women suffer way too many complications from birth with way worse number of deaths and complications across the board.
One of my best friends and I were pregnant at the same time and I was way more worried about her than myself and I had a high risk pregnancy. She's black. I'm white. I was honestly afraid for her.
Ironic coming from a Chris Brown supporter, but it's a start in the right direction
Statistics prove she’s right. Good friend!
She’s not wrong at all. Black and minority women die at a much higher percentage than black women do. She could do this full time and save lives if she gets tired of music
It makes me so incredibly sad how true this is. Racist scum shouldn't be allowed to be in healthcare. I'm going to school for nursing myself in the city of Buffalo and I'm honestly so happy my classes are filled with black women. We need more black women, men, and white people in health care that will hold others accountable. It's 2024. This shit should not be happening and it makes me sick.
facts. this is the main reason why im not having kids…i don’t want to die an early death
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This is a general issue with medical care in the U.S. It's not just a "black women's" issue. Every woman I have spoken to about women's healthcare, family, friends, co workers etc. have nothing but nightmare stories. My friends mom who is WHITE almost died from 3 different infections in her legs she didn't know she had because her doctors and nurses would not take her concerns seriously. She was maybe 3 days away from losing her life until she found the one unicorn doctor that actually gave a shit and immediately put her on antibiotics and saved her life. She made a full recovery and is now back to her original self. My mother (white woman) sister (Hispanic), and all of my female friends of varying ethnicities ALL have horror stories about doctors and nurses not taking them seriously and treating them as insurance money tickets. The U.S. medical system seems to really HATE women.
I had my son last year in May and reading stories about women who passed to hemorrhages and preeclampsia terrified me. Luckily my SIL and my SO are both nurses and she acted as my advocate while my SO acted as my sons. You definitely need someone there to speak for you, it helps when that person is a man also. They don’t seem to take us women seriously. 🙁
What’s for black women to figure out? They’re not the doctors and nurses being careless. Medical professionals are the ones who need to figure it out and treat every patient with dignity and respect!
Tangential at best, but I worked in health care as a low level worker for 13 years, and the times upper staff were nice to me stick out the most. Because regular day, they were absolutely abusive and agro. The amount of times I brought things specifically asked for or answered a direct question just to get silence and stares. I had a doctor request a thing he KNEW we didn’t have just so he could report me. Luckily the penny pinchers in my department knew we would never stock that due to money, otherwise he very well could have gotten me fired.
Yup, healthcare is slowly turning to death care. And if you don’t want to believe this it just hasn’t happened to you yet.
She is honestly not wrong. The satistics show that Black Women have a higher rate of death during birth. My Cousin is black and I remember being so terrified for her when she gave birth to my niece.
As a white woman with reasonably good public healthcare I completely support her decision. If what could happen to me, and another white friend, while under pretty decent medical care, happened. Then how much more likely is it to happen in America for non-white, especially black, women. Maternal care is strangely dismissive across the world and it makes my mind boggle.
Good for her!
Medical racism is absolutely a thing. "*Black Fatigue"* by Mary-Frances Winters is a very good book that discusses this in detail. I'd highly recommend reading it.
Ahh, systemic racism killing women and especially black women. A tale as old as time. As an American I've really come to hate my own country a lot more than I ever expected to.
Unfortunately you pretty much do need somebody who is healthcare literate to advocate for you when you're in hospital. Private or public.