Jamilah Haughton-Walden will be giving birth in complete uncertainty. The law clerk from Brampton, Ont., already has a 17-month-old, and she’s scheduled for a C-section in early June. She’s stressed about how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect her pregnancy and delivery, particularly as a Black woman.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in pre-pandemic times, Black women in the U.S. died of pregnancy-related causes at a rate three times higher than white women, and Black babies are twice as likely to die before reaching their first birthday than white babies, regardless of the mother’s income or education level.
Because Canada doesn’t collect race-based health data, we don’t have an accurate picture of Black maternal mortality in this country. However, a 2015 study by researchers at McGill University found that Black women in Canada have substantially higher rates of premature births than white women, mirroring the disparities in the United States.
And now, with COVID-19, we know that Black communities have been more devastated by the virus. Among the U.S. states reporting their race-based data, more than 23 per cent of all reported COVID-19 deaths are of Black people, yet they only make up 13 per cent of the U.S. population. A Minnesota-based research found that Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at a rate three times higher than white people.
While Canada has still not made a decision around collecting specific race-based data, one study found that predominantly Black neighbourhoods in Toronto are hit the hardest by COVID-19, and there is a strong correlation between high coronavirus rates and low income, poor work conditions and being a visible minority.
“She died in [my friend’s] arms because no one was listening to her at the hospital about what she was feeling and experiencing.”
- Jamilah Haughton-Walden
There’s also still limited information on how contracting COVID-19 can affect pregnant women and their babies’s health.
“I’m worried about getting it, and I’m worried about there not being enough staff to support us,” Haughton-Walden said. A new study from a Chicago hospital found that 16 pregnant women who had COVID-19 also had injuries to their placentas, which researchers say is indicative that closer monitoring is necessary for pregnant women.
Race is a significant factor in just how closely monitored women are in pregnancy— not to mention, according to many Black Canadian women, how seriously their health concerns are taken and how they fare both during and after childbirth. And not enough is being done to change that.
A dearth of accurate Canadian data
Dr. Heather Scott, an OB/GYN, global health director in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Dalhousie University, and chair of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System, told HuffPost Canada the lack of Canadian data is problematic.
“We know that any data that we report from Canada is extremely inaccurate with respect to maternal mortality, including race and ethnicity, because much of it isn’t counted. And so what we report are actually very good numbers around maternal mortality — but we don’t actually have accurate data, period.”
Scott, who recently attended a maternal mortality summit in the U.S., said she came away with confirmation that racism and racial disparities play a significant role in Black maternal mortality rates across North America. “It doesn’t seem to be related to education, employment or health coverage,” she said. “It does, however, seem to be related to a deeply racial disparity that we haven’t actually understood.”