An Olympian’s death highlights this nation’s maternal mortality crisis
Tori Bowie should be alive. If she had been pregnant in any other wealthy nation, it’s more likely that she would be. But Bowie, who was found dead May 2 from childbirth complications, lived in America, which has the world’s worst maternal mortality rate among high-income countries — 10 times the frequency of such nations as Australia, Israel, Japan, and Spain. She was also a Black woman, which means her chances of dying during pregnancy or childbirth were even worse — about 2.6 times higher — than the death rate for white women.
A three-time Olympic medalist in track and field, Bowie, who was 32, won gold as a member of the women’s 4x100-meter relay team in 2016. She was about eight months pregnant when her body was found in her Florida home during a wellness check. There were no drugs in her system or signs of foul play.
But an autopsy cited respiratory distress and eclampsia as possible complications that Bowie suffered from pregnancy. Eclampsia develops from preeclampsia when a woman experiences a sudden spike in blood pressure.
“We know very, very well how to treat that. When people are getting proper care, when they have access to care and they are taken seriously, they shouldn’t get beyond preeclampsia,” Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, a Los Angeles obstetrician-gynecologist, said Wednesday on CNN. “We do know that Black women have a much higher rate of preeclampsia but, again, this is treatable.”
It’s only treatable if Black women get the medical care they deserve, but racial biases in health care are well documented. According to the National Institutes of Health, pregnant Black women wait longer in emergency rooms and are admitted to the hospital at lower rates than white women.
There’s also a history, fueled by racist myths and misinformation, of Black people’s complaints of physical discomfort being taken less seriously. A University of Virginia study in 2020 found that Black patients are significantly less likely to be prescribed pain medication, and even when they are, it’s generally at a lower dosage.
Another UVA study of 222 white medical students and residents found that 50 percent held “false physiological beliefs” about Black people. Nearly 60 percent thought Black people had thicker skins and 12 percent said Black people’s “nerve endings were less sensitive” than those of white people.
“Consequently, a normal human reaction would be ‘Well I’m not taken seriously, so I’m not going to go get care,’” Gilberg-Lenz said. “There are so many levels of problems here.”
I know three Black women who nearly died in childbirth. All were in their early 30s, in good health, and they had access to world-class medical care. But during their pregnancies they spoke of doctors who might have been well-intentioned but seemed more eager to allay their concerns than address them medically.
Two developed life-threatening eclampsia in the late stages of their pregnancies. Another nearly bled to death immediately after giving birth to her daughter; only multiple blood transfusions saved her life.
In a 2018 Vogue magazine story, tennis icon Serena Williams discussed giving birth to her daughter by emergency C-section, before “everything went bad.” Because Williams had previously suffered a pulmonary embolism, she recognized the signs when she began to have breathing problems. Both a nurse and a doctor initially downplayed her concerns. When she was finally given a CT scan — which Williams had asked for from the outset — several small blood clots in her lungs were found.
What happened to Williams underlined another startling fact of this nation’s maternal mortality crisis: Even being well-educated and wealthy isn’t a hedge against catastrophe for Black women in childbirth. One thing proven to tilt the odds in their favor is being under the care of a Black doctor.
“Having doctors that look like their patients is super important,” Gilberg-Lenz said. “We do not have enough people of color, we do not have enough Black doctors — and that makes a difference. We know that outcomes are different when we look like our doctors.”
Nationwide, less than 6 percent of physicians identify as Black or African American.
So far, there’s been little reporting about what kind of prenatal care Bowie received during her pregnancy. But Kimberly Holland, Bowie’s longtime agent and friend, told the “Today” show that when she spoke to Bowie in April, the former track star was “looking forward to this new chapter in her life.” Instead, she’s another mournful story already told too often in this country.
In an autopsy, Bowie’s cause of death is listed as “natural.” But in a nation of such immense wealth, resources, and medical expertise, there should be nothing more unnatural than the preventable death of a pregnant Black woman.