Why Are So Many Black Mothers Still Dying?
No one in the medical system takes our stress seriously.
Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, according to the CDC’s 2023 maternal mortality data. But those numbers don’t account for the full truth:
We are not dying because we’re sicker. We are dying because we are ignored; in hospitals, in science, and in public health policy. And one of the most dangerous and least acknowledged causes?
Chronic stress.
The kind of stress that starts with racism and ends in heart failure, hemorrhage, or suicide.
The kind of stress that we carry in our blood, our brains, our uteruses, and still, no one treats it like a risk factor.
Black women have documented the truth for decades. We’ve always known that our maternal deaths were never about genetics—they were about systems of neglect.
In Killing the Black Body (Dorothy Roberts, 1997), we learn how U.S. policies have always framed Black motherhood as dangerous and undesirable, from coerced sterilizations to welfare restrictions and abusive birth control trials.
Battling Over Birth (Dána-Ain Davis, 2019) reveals the firsthand accounts of Black birthing people navigating hospitals where they were cut open without consent, dismissed while in pain, or left entirely alone. This is obstetric racism in real time.
In The Pain We Carry (Natalie Gutierrez, LMFT, 2022), complex PTSD is reframed as a result of chronic systems—racism, medical abuse, poverty—not just single traumatic events. She names how trauma lives in our nervous systems.
Pregnant While Black (Monique Rainford, 2023) directly ties the experience of Black maternity to a public health crisis: higher blood pressure, premature births, and poor outcomes are not accidental—they’re patterned responses to long-term stress and medical bias.
Birthing Justice, edited by Julia Chinyere Oparah and Alicia Bonaparte, lays out the structural racism in healthcare that leads to unequal access to doulas, midwives, mental health support, and safe births.
Here’s what the medical world still refuses to say clearly:
Stress isn’t “just” a mental health issue; it’s a biological weapon against the bodies of Black women.
The weathering hypothesis (Geronimus, 1992) explains how the chronic stress of racism causes early physiological deterioration. Studies have shown that Black women’s cells age faster than white women’s by as much as 7.5 years (Geronimus et al., 2006).
High stress levels elevate cortisol, which in pregnancy:
Weakens the immune system
Increases inflammation
Raises the risk of pre-eclampsia
Contributes to low birth weight
Is linked to preterm labor (Seng et al., 2011; Christian, 2012)
And yet… perinatal stress is not screened for in most OB/GYN practices.
You are not imagining this gap in care. It’s by design.
In 2022, the CDC published a report stating that 84% of maternal deaths in the U.S. are preventable. Among those, mental health conditions were a leading cause, especially suicide, substance use, and undiagnosed postpartum depression.
According to The Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health:
Black women are twice as likely to experience postpartum depression as white women.
Yet we are less likely to be diagnosed, and far less likely to receive treatment.
Birth-related PTSD—known clinically as CB-PTSD (Childbirth-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)—affects up to 20% of new mothers, with rates significantly higher in Black birthing people who’ve experienced medical neglect, abuse, or unexpected surgery (Dekel et al., 2020).
But instead of being screened or treated, our trauma is often dismissed as:
“Normal new mom nerves”
“Too sensitive”
“Strong Black woman syndrome”
We are told to be grateful that we survived childbirth.
But survival is not the same as care.
If the system won't protect us, we must come armed with knowledge and language that assert our power in every interaction.
Use these terms in your OB visits:
“I’m concerned about the effects of weathering and allostatic load on my pregnancy.”
“I want a perinatal mental health screening—today.”
“Please document that I asked for screening for CB-PTSD.”
“I need care from a culturally humble provider.”
“What trauma-informed supports do you offer in labor and delivery?”
Bring a doula. Bring a friend. Record your visits. Period!
When you walk into a hospital as a Black mother, you are often entering a system that will not prioritize your life unless you force it to.
This is Zsanine for REMIND Lab... remember…
The revolution starts in the womb.
And this is your invitation to fund the science that will save us.