In 2002, my mom sat in a hospital bed in excruciating pain while giving birth to me. After receiving an epidural, she still felt everything. This was her second birth. She knew her body and what the numbness of an epidural was supposed to feel like. She couldn’t understand what was different this time around, so she asked her doctor for help. They explained that they left her with a “hot spot” which would still allow her to feel pain in certain places. She explained this wasn’t what she asked for and would prefer the injection be increased to numb the pain completely. She waited and waited for the anesthesiologist, but they never came. She sat there in pain until I was born.

When my cousin gave birth just a year ago, she also had a difficult time. Throughout the course of her pregnancy, her doctor told her the baby wasn’t progressing as much as they expected him to, especially with how far along she was in her pregnancy. A few weeks before her due date, they encouraged inducing her labor. She wanted to give the baby some more time to see if he’d be able to grow on his own, but at 39 weeks she decided to go through with being induced. While this may have been the doctor’s professional opinion, complications arose following her induction. Two days later, the baby still wasn’t here. Her doctor attempted to use a Foley Bulb to help her cervix dilate, but she described it as being an extremely uncomfortable process. When this didn’t work and the baby’s heart rate began to drop each time she contracted, she was rushed into an emergency cesarean section. 

Unfortunately, their stories are not a unique experience for many Black women. My mother and sister happen to be among the “luckier” mothers who got to walk out of the hospital with their babies; some Black mothers never leave the hospital, Black women far too often have to beg for doctors to do their job, and when doctors fail to follow through, it can have life-threatening consequences. 

This phenomenon is part of a larger systemic issue that has deep historical roots. For example, dating back to the 19th century, notorious figures in healthcare like J. Marion Sims performed nonconsensual and experimental procedures on Black women to make advancements in the study of gynecology. Enslaved women like “Anarcha,” “Betsey” and “Lucy,” the only three of his subjects he named in his scientific journals, were forced to undergo medical operations, restrained to the operating table and given no anesthesia because it was a commonly held belief that Black women didn’t feel pain in the same way white women did. 

Centuries later, Black women are still being dismissed by medical professionals because of racially biased myths and are facing life-threatening consequences because of it. Even affluent Black women aren’t immune to the effects of medical racism. 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams recalled how doctors and nurses were quick to dismiss her concerns following the birth of her daughter as she described her shortness of breath and history of blood clots. She knew that it might’ve been a sign of something more serious and insisted she needed a CT scan and heparin, and when doctors gave in after she persisted, they found that she did, in fact, have blood clots in her lungs that required life-saving surgery before they traveled to her heart. 

It shouldn’t take Black women to get to a point where they feel like they’re dying, or actually die, for medical professionals to do their job. These women have entrusted their doctors with saving them and instead have to take charge of their own health and save themselves. The legacy of our medical system is marred by its racist roots, and it’s about time they confront and rectify it for the health of all Black women who’ve been victims of it. 

I’m writing this piece not because this story hasn’t already been told or because these experiences are unique to my mother, cousin or countless other Black women whose stories haven’t been told — but I’m going to keep telling this story anywhere I can until someone starts to listen to us. 

JA’JUAN REFUGE is a first-year in Silliman College. Contact her at jajuan.refuge@yale.edu.