by Tammy Owens

Reflecting on her relentless fears of dying as a pregnant Black woman, the author contends that Black women’s high maternal mortality rate is a significant threat to the safety of Black children, thereby making it one of the most pressing national child welfare issues in the U.S.

I had a baby last year as a 34-year-old black woman. Throughout my entire pregnancy, I loathed saying “I’m pregnant” aloud. I hated telling people that I was pregnant. The only people that I told about my pregnancy were the people I could not avoid and the individuals I imagined the medical team would call to inform about my death. There were no baby showers, pregnant-belly Instagram photos, or FaceTime calls to share the exciting news about the sex of the baby beyond an extremely small circle of loved ones. In fact, my loved ones had to beg me to set up a baby registry and accept essential gifts such as diapers and wipes. I was afraid that if I told people I was pregnant then the fact that I was carrying a human being, one that was fully capable of robbing me of my life in the same way that so many babies in utero had taken the lives of other black women, would be real. If I told people, then I could not turn back from the decision that I made to risk my life and have a child as a black woman in America. My fears or personal experience along with the statistics of way too many black mothers dying leads me to contend that black maternal death is one of the most critical child welfare issues in the U.S.

How do you tell people that I am excited to have a child but I’m terrified that this child will kill me? Really, how do you tell someone that as a black woman? Black women do not have space to be seen as living and breathing human beings, let alone as terrified mothers. Black mothers have endured a long history of racial stereotypes that have often depicted them as abrasive, unfeminine, bad mothers that either work too hard and thus neglect their own children or work too little and thus suck up too much of the nation’s welfare resources (Collins 2009).

Black mothers have not only endured racist stereotypes about their ability to mother the children they birth, but their capacity to “gestate responsibly” is also constantly up for debate in the court of public opinion and in the criminal justice system. Black mothers have been disproportionately imprisoned due to myths such as the crack-addicted mother carrying the crack baby. This myth has taunted black women and their children for decades. The children of alleged crack mothers were deemed falsely as crack babies who could only ever grow up to be “super-predators” or threats to the safety of real American children and families. This myth about drug-addicted mothers and their children emerged during the 1980s crack epidemic, but its effects continue to haunt the lives of black mothers, especially if they seek any sort of economic assistance (Roberts 2016). This myth was accompanied by others that would emerge years later to support abortion campaigns that use pregnant black women as props in their movement while solidifying representations of black mothers as monsters. In 2011, a pro-life organization in Texas created a campaign in which they placed huge billboards around New York City proclaiming, “The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in the Womb.” This pro-life group seemingly had no regard for the backhanded message they were disseminating, one that further ensconced black mothers in a web of racially-gendered stereotypes and catapulted them on to a national stage as the epitome of the “bad mother”.

Again, with the stereotypes of black mothers in mind, what is the right way to tell someone that you’re afraid of dying during childbirth in 2020? You can tell people that you are afraid of so many things about children and child birth such as the pain or how you will manage the sleeplessness and excessive thoughts about everything ranging from giving birth while wearing a mask because of Covid safety precautions to affording child care. But you cannot tell people that you are terrified of the child.

The terror that I felt during my pregnancy does not compare to the terror that the black women who have lost their lives in childbirth must have experienced in the moments leading up to their deaths. I’ve read so many stories of black women dying in child birth. My heart breaks every single time. The sting of the pinch never dulls. I read Sha-Asia’s story. I read Dr. Chaniece Wallace’s story. I cried and nearly vomited while reading both. I cried for their families, especially their children that survived. I cried for the black women who could never find anyone to listen to them when they felt that something was off. I cried because they didn’t have that doctor who was concerned enough about their life or the lives of black mothers to simply slow down and take just one more look. My heart doesn’t break for anything related to survivor’s guilt. It breaks because I imagine that they knew, as black women, as black mothers, that they could not tell anyone about their fears.

According to the CDC, black women over the age of 30 are four or five times more likely to die in child birth than white women. In fact, if you are a black woman who, like myself, managed to obtain a college degree, you are 5.2 times more likely to die in child birth than white women.

Without valuing black mothers, we cannot value their children. These concepts go hand in hand. We cannot say that we are concerned about the welfare of black children without first being concerned about their mothers. Their mothers are dying to birth them. We must shift our understanding of child welfare issues to include black mothers’ safety as a chief concern in ensuring that black children will be born into safe conditions. If black mothers are not safe, then their children are not safe. Thus, black maternal death is a national child welfare issue. To care for black children means caring first and foremost for their mothers.

Given the number of black women who have died, we must consider the moment they learn of their pregnancy as a potential state of crisis for their families. In this moment, we must begin working to develop a plan to keep them safe and alive with tangible resources and support, including doctors who are trained on culturally-relevant issues that are specific to black mothers. Our social services teams must also plan to keep the mother alive by coming up with case management services that offer supports such as birth advocates and doulas for every black mother to ensure that there are multiple voices present during the prenatal appointments and delivery day. From gestation to delivery, black mothers need people with them who can ensure that the mother is alive when her baby leaves the hospital nursery. Treating black maternal mortality as a child welfare issue with the goal of KEEPING BLACK MOTHERS ALIVE is the only way we can protect their children and their families.

Thankfully, the medical team did not have to call my loved ones to inform them of my death. The baby, Victor-Charlie, and I made it! I apologize to everyone who may be finding out about him by reading this post. Please know that the thought of death seized me more and more each month that Victor-Charlie grew inside of me. As truthful as it is but rarely admitted publicly, that feeling of terror was bigger than the excitement for the baby. I am grateful for him, but I am most grateful that I lived through pregnancy to not only take care of him, but also to serve as a testament during a dangerous time that black women can survive pregnancy.

I did not die, but I did suffer. I’m still suffering. I was induced due to high blood pressure. I hemorrhaged and could not leave the hospital without a blood transfusion. Prior to having a baby, I never had any real health problems. Now, I have blood clots in both of my legs and both of my lungs. I experienced the top three complications that the CDC has identified as the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths—postpartum hemorrhage, severe hypertension, and venous thromboembolism. But I did not die. Yet, my fears have found another way to haunt me as a black mother-survivor. I have to keep my Black and Puerto Rican son alive while living with my new terror—that he can be killed by anyone who perceives him as a threat.

About the author

Tammy Owens is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. Owens is currently working on her book manuscript, Young Revolutionaries: Black Girls and the Fight for Girlhood from Slavery to #Sayhername. Owens’ research has been published in journals such as Women, Gender, and Families of Color and Departures in Critical Qualitative Research.