The Importance of Respectful Maternity Care for Women of Color

As the United States contends with a pivotal moment of reckoning on racial justice, inequitable treatment in healthcare has risen in the public consciousness1—largely due to the disproportionately high rates of COVID-19 among Black Americans and other communities of color.2 Behind the statistics are personal stories of people of color, across geography, socioeconomic status, and health profile, who have been denied access to lifesaving care, even as their expressions of pain, discomfort, and illness have been ignored. For those of us working in health equity and who have studied the history of mistreatment of marginalized communities by the medical establishment, hearing and seeing these stories play out in the context of COVID-19 is not surprising. As devastating as these stories are, the commonalities are always Black and brown skin, mistreatment, and, far too often, premature death.

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