After Serena Williams gave birth to her first child, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., via emergency C-section on September 1, she joined a growing number of women, primarily Black women and women of color, who are facing death after ushering in a new life. In the February issue of Vogue, Williams recounts how she discovered blood clots on her lungs the day after giving birth. She left her hospital room, so she wouldn’t alarm her mother, and told her nurse that she needed a CT scan and a blood thinner immediately. The nurse challenged her, but Williams insisted on the treatment, and the doctors discovered a pulmonary embolism. She later had to have surgery to close her C-section wound after excessive coughing caused it to open, and while in surgery, doctors discovered a hematoma in her abdomen. She had to have another surgery—her third in less than a week.
Williams survived, but so many other mothers don’t.
- African Americans have 2.3 times the infant mortality rate as non-Hispanic whites.
- African American infants are 3.8 times as likely to die from complications related to low birthweight as compared to non-Hispanic white infants.
- African Americans had over twice the sudden infant death syndrome mortality rate as non-Hispanic whites, in 2017.
- In 2017, African American mothers were 2.3 times more likely than non-Hispanic white mothers to receive late or no prenatal care.
Infant Mortality Rate per 1,000 live births, 2017
| Non-Hispanic Black | Non-Hispanic White | All Races | Non-Hispanic Black / Non-Hispanic White Ratio |
| 11.0 | 4.7 | 5.8 | 2.3 |
Source: CDC 2019. Infant Mortality Statistics from the 2017 Period Linked Birth/Infant Death Data Set. National Vital Statistics Reports. Table 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_10-508.pdf [474.53KB]