Healthcare workers perpetuate stereotypes about black pregnant women

A doctoral dissertation at the University of Coimbra analysed the pregnancy experiences of black mothers in Lisbon and found that health workers continue to perpetuate stereotypes and prejudices against these women.

Laura Brito’s dissertation, titled “The Intersection of Race, Gender and Class – An Analysis of the Pregnancy, Childbirth and Postpartum Experiences of Black and Afro-Descendant Mothers in Lisbon,” concluded that despite the absence of formal discrimination in access to health services, these women’s experiences are marked by various forms of violence (gendered and racialized), and health workers perpetuate stereotypes.

The doctoral study, conducted as part of the Center for Social Research’s Postcolonialism and Global Citizenship program, utilized a questionnaire with 119 valid responses and 17 in-depth interviews with black women.

While the questionnaire notes that therapeutic care tends to follow the recommendations of the General Directorate of Health during pregnancy and the postpartum period, in the case of hospital births, care “begins to deviate from the recommendations,” which may be due to the Portuguese culture of “very instrumental births,” Laura Brito, a graduate in anthropology, told Lusa.

“This medicalization of childbirth affects all women, of all classes and races,” the researcher explained.

In the questionnaire, although the majority stated that they had not suffered from obstetric violence (63.9%), 6.7% believed that they had suffered from obstetric violence and that it was related to their ethnicity and race.

It was in the in-depth interviews that Laura Brito revealed the persistence of stereotypes.

There is a report of a woman who came to the hospital already pregnant with blood loss, and the doctor treating her asked if she had ever been stabbed.

“Why did I get stabbed? To this day, it still confuses me. It was a situation where I said, ‘No, they would never ask me that question if I was a white woman sitting here in front of him, worried about a problem with my child,'” he said.

The idea that black women have better pain tolerance and, as a result, the devaluation of symptoms are some of the issues raised in the interviews.

There is a case where a baby was born without ears after 11 ultrasounds during pregnancy and the mother was not informed about her baby’s condition, and another case where a doctor pressured a pregnant woman to seek help from a social worker.

“Structural racism doesn’t stop at the maternity ward,” said one interviewee quoted in the dissertation.

Another woman said a doctor forced her to get an intrauterine device to avoid getting pregnant, even though she wanted to have more children, Laura Brito said.

“The stereotypes are primarily about controlling the number of children. There is also a lot of attention paid to monitoring social security to check if they have the conditions and pain tolerance. They report that they asked for help, that they wanted an epidural, and they were denied it, they were told: ‘You are strong, black women give birth well,'” the investigator said.

According to Laura Brito, there are episodes of violence that women were not aware of but learned about later, especially thanks to work like her dissertation and the Association Saúde das Mães Negras e Afrodescendentes e Racializada em Portugal, of which she is a co-founder.

“When looking at other reports, many people do some introspection and realize there is a pattern,” he found.

It is important for the researcher that the NHS and its professionals think about issues of discrimination, given that this exercise needs to be “mobilised by someone who comes from outside and has the knowledge”.

Laura Brito also advocates for more comprehensive research at the national level to understand the relationship between health services and ethnic and racial minorities.