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This Health Crisis Is Nearly Epidemic
Racism is a key to the rise of maternal mortality for Black women
Lynnie Ervin’s daughter Kelly died while giving birth at Christian Northwest Hospital in St. Louis more than 10 years ago, and the memory hasn’t faded. She and her husband had gone to pick up Kelly from her home because she’d fallen ill, was pregnant, and lived alone. “Her entire face and body were so swollen I didn’t even recognize my daughter,” says Ervin. “We took her home with us because she could barely move. When she called the doctor, he never had her come into the office.” He diagnosed her over the phone and prescribed some medication.
After Kelly couldn’t keep the medication down, they raced her to the emergency room. The doctors took her blood and it was almost black, Ervin recalls. “I had never seen blood that looked like that.” Hospital officials initially diagnosed Kelly with a kidney infection. Later that evening, things turned from bad to worse and the Ervins were told the doctor would have to deliver the baby. “The nurses said they would come out and let us know what was happening,” she says. “The next thing we knew the doctor coming out saying the baby is okay but Kelly is unresponsive. I knew then that she was gone.”
Kelly was 8 months pregnant. Ervin believes that an office visit — as opposed to a…
