Serena Williams shared an image from the day she gave birth to her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, on Instagram Saturday to call attention to Black Maternal Health Week. The 41-year-old tennis star has firsthand experience with the risks the US health care system poses to Black people: After giving birth via a C-section in 2017, she suffered a pulmonary embolism, among other complications, that a nurse initially didn’t take seriously, which could have cost her her life, as SELF previously reported.
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In a 2022 interview with Elle, Williams said that when she tried to advocate for herself after giving birth, she was swiftly dismissed. After voicing concerns about her health—Williams had a history of being “high risk” for blood clots, so she pushed her care team for certain tests and medications—her nurse responded, “I think all this medicine is making you talk crazy.”
Tragically, instances like this are all too common, and Williams wrote in her Instagram caption that people with similar stories reached out to her after she told hers: “I shared my birth story and I was stunned by the outpouring of support and similar experiences women have had,” she wrote. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], Black women in the United States are over three times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes.” Per the CDC, a lack of access to quality health care and structural racism are factors that contribute to these disparities, as is implicit bias (which is why all health care workers who treat pregnant people should receive implicit bias training, as SELF previously reported).
Williams went on to say that this crisis isn’t limited to where she lives: Research has shown that it affects Black mothers worldwide. “This is not just a challenge in the United States. Around the world, thousands of women struggle to give birth in the poorest countries,” Williams said. “Every mother, everywhere, regardless of race or background deserves to have a healthy pregnancy and birth.”
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