Pregnant black women in the Americas are being mistreated due to “widespread racism” in the health care system, including a much higher risk of dying while giving birth, especially in the United States, denounces the UN in a report released Wednesday.
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Maternal mortality among women of African descent is “abnormally high, either in absolute terms or in comparison” with women not of this origin, estimates the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in this report which reviews the data of nine countries of the Americas chosen because of the proportion of these women in the population and of available data (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Panama, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, United States and Uruguay).
The disparity is greatest in the United States, where African American women are three times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy or within six weeks of giving birth. And this maternal mortality “persists regardless of income or level of education”, insists the report.
Black women are also 2.5 times more likely to die in childbirth in Suriname and 1.6 times more in Brazil and Colombia.
Noting that this high maternal mortality among black women in the Americas is often attributed “to their individual failure to seek care in time, to questionable lifestyles or hereditary predispositions”, UNFPA “categorically refutes these misconceptions “, linking these gaps to a” generalized racism and sexism “.
“The scourge of racism for black women and girls, many of whom are descendants of victims of slavery, continues in the Americas”, denounces the boss of the UN agency Natalia Kanem in a press release.
“Too often, women and girls of African descent are abused and abused, their needs are not taken seriously and their families are shattered by preventable deaths during births,” she adds.
Black women and adolescent girls are generally disadvantaged “before, during and after pregnancy,” the report notes.
UNFPA points in particular to the prejudices that persist in the content of medical education.
Thus, black women in labor are deprived of anesthesia under the pretext that they would be less sensitive to pain or painkiller because they would be more likely to become dependent, denounces the report.
He also criticizes behaviors of verbal or physical abuse on the part of health personnel.
Consequences of the neglect of which they are victims, these women face more complications during their pregnancy and deferred care, “which too often lead to death”.
The agency also regrets the absence of racial data in certain countries, which makes these disparities “invisible”.