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Women’s reproductive freedom will be one of the biggest issues on the ballot in the 2024 election for the Black voters, particularly as it relates to Black maternal outcomes. According to the CDC, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women.
Women’s Pain Is Often Ignored By Gender and Racially-Biased Doctors
Now, the results of a fresh study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research have uncovered racial disparities among mothers who delivered their babies via unscheduled C-sections which can lead to unnecessary health complications and unwanted medical debt.
According to the study which looked at close to one million hospital births across the state of New Jersey, Black mothers are over 20 percent more likely to deliver by C-section than non-Hispanic white mothers – even when they were cared for by the same doctor.
Researchers also found a connection between when doctors opted to have their Black patients deliver via C-section and the number of scheduled C-sections the hospitals already had on the books at the time. The study revealed that more Black mothers were having the procedure when the hospitals were less busy – a connection that led researchers to believe that some of the decisions were financially motivated, according to The New York Times.Â
That theory is back up by previous research published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, women who give birth at for-profit hospitals are more likely to deliver via C-section.
Many Black women have complicated relationships with their doctors, feeling their health concerns often go unheard. Previous research has uncovered racial bias in pain assessment and treatment plans for Black women due to false beliefs their doctors had with regards to their threshold for pain.
C-sections are relatively common practice in this country. According to the March of Dimes, over 30 percent of live births in the United States in 2022 were Cesarean deliveries. But while they can prevent injury and death for the mother and child in certain situations, there are also increased risks for unexpected complications including infection, organ injury and blood clots. C-section deliveries can also leave families with massive medical debt – particularly if they are uninsured. In 2022, the average cost for a C-section was over $35,000 for people without insurance or those who received out-of-network care.
