#27 - The Black Maternity Crisis: Death By Racism

Why do Black women have a nearly 400% higher risk of dying in prenatal care and childbirth? Khiara Bridges, a leading expert on race, class, and reproductive rights, joins us to spotlight the real reasons for America's racial health crisis - and how to fix it. SHOW NOTES Guest: Khiara Bridges Khiara Bridges is a professor at UC Berkeley School of Law and a nationally-recognized expert on the intersection of race, class, and reproductive rights, and the maternal health crisis afflicting Black women. She has authored four books including her latest, Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans. SELECTED WORKS BY KHIARA BRIDGES: Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans (book) Reproducing Race : An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (book) Race in the Machine: Racial Disparities in Health and Medical AI (article) Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality (law review article) MORE ON NFL BRAIN TRAUMA SETTLEMENT: NFL agrees to end race-based brain testing in $1B settlement on concussions HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE: [7:53] Discrepancies in medical care between Black and white patients [12:54] Pregnant Black women “perform class privilege” to help odds of survival [18:49] Myth of genetic differences and “race correction” for Black patienets [27:21] Real causes of Black patients’ increased diseases [44:43] Black doctors improve health and survival of Black newborns [54:39] Health care must be a basic human right for all Contact Tony & Adam Subscribe to the Podcast