Karrie Jones sits in a wheelchair at the Dallas Regional Medical Center in Mesquite, Texas, alongside a charge nurse. She is screaming, crying, and squirming in pain. She called the hospital while en route and informed them that she was in active labor; however, upon arrival, the charge nurse, who barely looks at her in the viral TikTok video, does not seem to register the urgency of the event, ignoring Karrie’s desperate cries. Karrie waits for 30 minutes without medical care and ultimately delivers her baby in the ER waiting room.
The echoes of these women’s pleas ring loudly amongst a chorus of other Black women who, like them, have been put in danger when navigating pregnancy, birth, and postpartum in the United States medical system. These stories are jarring, unsettling, heartbreaking and most importantly, not new.
Mercedes Wells walked into Franciscan Health Crown Point Hospital in Crown Point, Indiana, urgently needing to deliver her baby. Her husband recounts that she begged the nurse saying, “’I’m really in active labor. I can feel it, contractions as I walk. I mean my pain. I’m telling you; I can feel it,” however, the nurse ignores her pleas and discharges her. Just eight minutes after being discharged, Mercedes gave birth in her car on the side of the road.
When Tierra Walker experienced seizures, high blood pressure, and diabetes, she recognized the symptoms of preeclampsia because it had led to the stillbirth of her twins in a prior pregnancy. Tierra was increasingly concerned about her ability to survive her pregnancy. One doctor that she saw documented her as “high risk of clinical deterioration and/or death.” Tierra understood the danger of these symptoms to her health and life, and asked her doctors if it was safe for her to continue her pregnancy. One doctor told her that, despite the seizures, high blood pressure, blood clot and other symptoms she was experiencing, there was no emergency; that nothing was wrong with her pregnancy, only her health. A few days after Christmas and on his birthday, her 14-year-old son found Tierra lifeless in her bed– she had died from preeclampsia, a fear that she had communicated to her doctor, but was dismissed.
The echoes of these women’s pleas ring loudly amongst a chorus of other Black women who, like them, have been put in danger when navigating pregnancy, birth, and postpartum in the United States. medical system. These stories are jarring, unsettling, heartbreaking and most importantly, not new. While Karrie and Mercedes’ incidents occurred this past November and Tierra’s untimely passing in December 2024, Serena Williams shared her experience about having to save her own life while giving birth in 2022, Tatyana Ali testified in front of Congress, sharing her frightening experience in childbirth in 2021, and the world learned about the tragic deaths of Shalon Irving (a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist with a PhD) and Kira Johnson (a runner, pilot and entrepreneur who spoke multiple languages) in 2017. The throughline is that Black birthing people are continually mistreated, disrespected, and ignored when they engage with the medical system, no matter their education, economic status, or celebrity.
According to the CDC, 1 in 5 women report mistreatment while receiving maternity care, but that rises to 1 in 3 for Black mothers. Some of the most common forms of mistreatment reported were: receiving no response to requests for help, being shouted at or scolded, and being threatened with withholding treatment or made to accept unwanted treatment. Disrespectful maternity care puts birthing people and their babies at risk and can lead to negative maternal and infant health outcomes like severe or life-threatening complications, and even death. Black women face a maternal mortality rate 3.5 times higher than their white counterparts and are twice as likely as white mothers to experience severe maternal morbidity. While we see these stories unfold time and time again, this crisis is preventable. If Tierra, Shalon, and Kira’s concerns had been heard and addressed appropriately, they may still be here with us today, raising the children that they were taken away from too soon.
While we see these stories unfold time and time again, this crisis is preventable.
Providing quality, respectful, and affirming care during pregnancy is a matter of urgency. Here is a list of actions Congress can take this year to promote respectful maternity care:
Congress should introduce and pass legislation, like the Black Maternal Health Momnibus, that establishes mechanisms to hold medical providers accountable for disrespectful care. There are two bills in the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act that address disrespectful care directly:
- The Kira Johnson Act focuses on advancing maternal health equity by establishing respectful maternity care compliance and bias and racism training for all employees in maternity care settings.
- The Maternal Health Pandemic Response Act would establish a task force on birthing experience to develop federal recommendations for safe, respectful, responsive, and empowering maternity care during public health emergencies.
Congress should invest in proven models of care that lead to better care experiences and birth outcomes. Evidence shows that midwifery care, community birth centers, and doula support are highly effective forms of care and improve maternal health experiences, trust, and outcomes. Congress should pass:
- The Midwives for Maximizing Optimal Maternity Services (MOMS) Act of 2025, which would establish new funding streams for midwifery education and increase diversity in the midwifery workforce.
- The Mamas First Act, which would require state Medicaid programs to cover doula and midwife services.
- The Better Availability of Birth Centers Improves Outcomes and Expands Savings Act (BABIES Act), which would require Medicaid to establish a demonstration program to improve access to freestanding birth center services for women with low-risk pregnancies and would provide grants for start up or expansion costs to expand birth centers in underserved areas.
The health of mothers and infants are indications of the health of a nation. The United States continues to face a maternal health crisis, while the current administration and the Republican Congress continue to erode health coverage and critical maternal health programs instead of strengthening them.
Congress should invest in the perinatal workforce and address the impacts that H.R.1 will have on the health care workforce. The United States is facing a health care workforce shortage, creating environments in which health care workers may feel overburdened and burntout, which can lead to lower quality care and increases in mistreatment. Compounding the current health care workforce shortage is the impact that the Medicaid cuts in H.R.1 will have on hospitals. It has been projected that H.R.1 will lead to the closure of over 130 rural labor and delivery units in addition to other closures in metropolitan areas. Congress must restore the cuts that have been made to Medicaid by H.R.1. Further, Congress should introduce and pass the Perinatal Workforce Act, which would require Health and Human Services to award grants to education and training programs to grow and diversify the perinatal workforce and would require the National Institutes of Health to study best practices for culturally and linguistically congruent maternity care.
The health of mothers and infants are indications of the health of a nation. The United States continues to face a maternal health crisis, while the current administration and the Republican Congress continue to erode health coverage and critical maternal health programs instead of strengthening them. Every woman deserves dignified maternity care, and in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, that should be every woman’s experience. In this new year, Congress can decide to prioritize addressing the maternal health crisis or continue to decide to leave mothers behind.
