Woman Gives Birth In Bathtub After Hospital Turns Her Away

(Photo credit: WTKR.com)

The constant disbelief of Black women in health, specifically childbirth, has to be stopped. From Serena Williams having to save her own life when doctors didn’t believe her while she was in labor to the death of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ ex, Kim Porter, after reports of her complaining of pain went unnoticed, this trend among doctors and their Black women patients, has almost become an epidemic.

A Virginia couple felt this blatant bias as well. As a matter of fact, the wife and mother delivered their firstborn in a bathtub hours after a hospital would not admit them and told the two to go home.

LeeAnn Bienaime, 27, and her husband Leo Bienaime, 29, went to Naval Medical Center Portsmouth the evening of Aug. 23 after she had consistent and “intense” contractions, she told ABC News.

“I was certain that we were just going to be admitted … In all of our classes and appointments, they told us that when you’re having contractions five minutes apart for a minute long, for one hour, you should come in to the hospital,” she said. “And we had been timing them.”

But when the two got to the hospital, they said they were told they wouldn’t be admitted because while she was 80% effaced, she was only 2 centimeters dilated, not 5 centimeters.

Her contractions, however, were painful. Another Black mother complaining of pain that wasn’t believed.

Currently, the United States has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world — which is already terrible. But it gets even worse for black women, whose odds of dying in childbirth are three to four times higher, largely because doctors believe black women less when they express concerns about symptoms, especially pain. “These racial disparities exist even when you control for socioeconomic factors like education or insurance status,” reporter and comedian John Oliver said. “We are literally disbelieving black women to death.”