Black Maternal Care Under Renewed Scrutiny After Viral Video
- Christy Perez
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Leaders, activists push for protections as news of dismissive treatment resurfaces
A Black woman social media influencer known as Wicked Confections recently posted a video on Instagram that reignited widespread concern over how Black women are treated during childbirth. The video shows a young Black woman in visible distress as a white nurse continues asking administrative and deeply personal questions rather than providing immediate medical attention. Moments later the woman delivered her child. Her mother, standing beside her, confronted the nurse asking whether this was how she treated all patients or only the Black ones.
"What you see in that clip is not an isolated moment ... it is the everyday reality of being a Black woman in medical settings where your pain is questioned, your history is interrogated, and your dignity becomes secondary to someone else’s assumptions. That video went viral because so many of us have lived our own version of it.”
The video resonated across social media because many Black women recognized the scene instantly. Comment threads filled with accounts of labor experiences where Black mothers described their pain being minimized or their urgency dismissed. These personal accounts mirror longstanding national data showing deep racial disparities in maternal outcomes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), non-Hispanic Black women face nearly triple the maternal mortality risk of white women, a disparity driven overwhelmingly by preventable factors.
Read BGX's coverage: Black Maternal Mortality by the Numbers
In Georgia the inequities sharpen. Research from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health shows Black women in the state are more than twice as likely as white women to die from pregnancy-related causes. Analysts at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI) identify racial bias in clinical care, inconsistent prenatal access and hospital closures as key drivers of the state’s crisis.
Kay Turner is a Black woman and mother from Grovetown in Augusta’s metro region who ran for Grovetown City Council and now serves as political action chair for the Columbia County chapter of the NAACP, as well as community liaison with Learning for Justice. Turner says the viral video captures something Black women have known for years.
“What you see in that clip is not an isolated moment,” Turner explains. “It is the everyday reality of being a Black woman in medical settings where your pain is questioned, your history is interrogated, and your dignity becomes secondary to someone else’s assumptions. That video went viral because so many of us have lived our own version of it.”
Turner emphasizes the issue isn’t simply interpersonal but deeply structural. “People treat it like it’s about one rude nurse or one dismissive doctor,” she says. “But what we are up against is a system that has never valued Black women’s bodies or Black women’s lives. We carry the consequences of that history into every appointment, every emergency-room visit, every labor and delivery.”
The incident, amplified by Wicked Confections, echoes what scholars describe as racialized medical neglect. Bias often appears through delays in response, disbelief regarding symptoms, inappropriate questioning, or assumptions about Black women’s pain tolerance. A 2016 landmark study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documented some medical trainees who endorsed false biological myths about Black people feeling less pain made significantly biased clinical decisions.
Reproductive justice advocates have long warned that these biases are embedded within medical institutions. The Black Mamas Matter Alliance has stressed respectful maternal care requires cultural competence, patient-centered communication, and accountability for unequal treatment. Black doulas and midwives across Georgia report these disparities daily; from ignored symptoms to near-misses that could have been prevented with attentive care.
The viral video also underscores how digital documentation has become a form of community protection. In earlier generations, such moments lived solely in private memory. Now they surface publicly, revealing encounters that many medical institutions would rather keep invisible. These recordings build collective evidence that supports what Black mothers, healthcare researchers and reproductive-justice advocates have named for decades.
Leaders push Georgia for broader protections
As maternal mortality continues to worsen nationwide, policy experts and community leaders are pressing Georgia lawmakers for systemic reforms. In recent years, the state extended Medicaid postpartum coverage to 12 months, moving beyond the previous 60-day limit; a change experts say is essential to improving continuity of care and reducing preventable deaths. This extension is detailed in a recent Urban Institute analysis of Georgia’s Medicaid postpartum extension. That extended coverage is part of a broader strategy to stabilize care for birthing people through the first year after delivery, a period when many complications and deaths occur. Legislators in 2025 introduced House Bill 925, which would establish a pilot program to provide Medicaid coverage for doula services including prepartum, labor and postpartum support. The bill is part of a growing push to integrate community-based perinatal care into the formal maternal-health system. Advocates argue access to doula care can lead to better outcomes, lower preterm birth rates and fewer maternal complications, especially in underserved communities.
Still, many maternal-health reform efforts in Georgia remain unfinished or unevenly implemented. A recent retrospective analysis by NORC at the University of Chicago notes while the state has made meaningful policy advances over the last decade, including the Medicaid postpartum extension and adoption of standardized safety protocols for maternity care — persistent issues remain such as workforce shortages in rural areas, limited provider awareness of policy changes, fragmented data systems and funding gaps that prevent full realization of recommended reforms.
Turner welcomes these developments but warns that they are only partial solutions. “These policy steps, like extended postpartum coverage, pilot doula reimbursement, they matter. They can save lives,” she says. “But as a community liaison and organizer, I see how easily a bill can become a paper promise unless we fight for accountability and resources to make it real.”
In jails and prisons, there are few opportunities to go viral
A critical extension of the broader maternal-health crisis involves Black pregnant women who are incarcerated. Though the viral video emerged from a community hospital, researchers note the same racialized patterns appear with greater intensity inside jails and prisons. An investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution uncovered systemic failures in Georgia prison systems, with some highlights for the women’s side of the correctional agency which included conditions like repeated delays in emergency responses and inadequate prenatal monitoring. In 2024 WABE News reported on accusations and legal investigations being brought by pregnant women, many of them Black or Brown, regarding inhumane conditions of confinement and treatment in Georgia’s jails. National research from the Prison Policy Initiative shows that incarcerated pregnant women regularly face inconsistent care, neglect, and restricted access to critical services, which are clearly issues that disproportionately impact Black women in custody.
Inside carceral settings the bias against Black pregnant people can become more aggressive. Pain is often dismissed. Requests for care become fraught. Symptoms are ignored until they evolve into emergencies. For Black women who already face disproportionate risk, entering the correctional healthcare system amounts to stepping into an environment where intent to care is substituted for suspicion. Scholars argue meaningful change requires explicit policy protections: mandated prenatal and postpartum care standards, bans on shackling during pregnancy and labor, strengthened oversight of medical contractors and funding for community-based support services including doulas and mental health providers. Without these interventions, incarcerated Black mothers remain dangerously vulnerable.
The story Wicked Confections highlighted and that community voices like Kay Turner now amplify, reveals a continuum of disregard spanning labor rooms, community hospitals, emergency departments, jails and prisons. It reflects cultural and institutional patterns that have long treated Black women’s bodies as less credible, less sensitive and less worthy of care. What began as a single video now demands structural change across medical, public health and criminal justice systems. Black mothers deserve care that meets them with urgency, respect, and dignity. The viral video didn’t create the crisis; it exposed it. And now, those who care (mothers, advocates, lawmakers) must act.