The Artwork

An illustration of a Black fetus by medical illustrator, student and aspiring neurosurgeon, Chidiebere Ibe, went viral this week. I cannot fully express in words how beautiful the illustration is, or how happy I am that it is currently trending.

The context of a reshared post, featuring the viral illustration, expresses the Black Twitter user’s realization of never having seen a black fetus illustrated before. But the full depth of this generational lack of representation is a reality for every person who is resharing, and that is tragic. That is white supremacy (aka white delusion).

Subliminal Warfare

I think back to illustrations I have seen over the course of my life in textbooks and medical journals, and so much of it has been whitewashed to include individuals with Eurocentric features and pale skin ad nauseam. I won’t get too deep into the fact that the historic, genocidal “victors” who sought to uphold white delusion were, more often than not, the authors and illustrators of said texts. But recent generations have been pushing through and slowly changing that.

I am embarrassed to say that for a fleeting period when I was in elementary school I used to run around with a t-shirt on my head, over my braids and beads, pretending I had long, straight hair like some of my classmates. Crazy thing is, I hated most of those prissy bishes. But those white girls got the attention, soft voice, and white glove treatment from educators. I just wanted what I knew I deserved but knew, even in my youth, equated to being white or possessing Eurocentric features. 

Structural Racism in Healthcare

Back to the powerful art at hand, and the need for it. The amount of racism, microaggressions, and mistreatment of Black patients that still permeate the health field is disgusting and terrifying. Pregnant Black mothers are often dismissed for not feeling the same amount of labor pain as white mothers.

“Black skin is thicker”

~Many white medical workers

Yes, you read that right. To this day Black patients are still the victims of absurd stereotypes, and they are often reprimanded for being “overdramatic” when sharing their experience with symptoms white patients have the ultrasound red carpet rolled out for. This is especially prevalent among Black birth and maternal mortality.

There was a recent upturn in maternal mortality, with the rate increasing from 9.9 deaths/100,000 live births in 1999 to 17.4 in 2018. The large racial disparity persisted over time; Black women in 2018 had a 2.4 times higher risk of maternal mortality than White women…. Unmarried status, US-born status, lower education, and rural residence were associated with 50-114% higher maternal mortality risks. Mothers in the most-deprived areas had a 120% higher risk of mortality than those in the most-affluent areas; both absolute and relative disparities in mortality by deprivation level widened between 2002 and 2018. Hemorrhage, pregnancy-related hypertension, embolism, infection, and chronic conditions were the leading causes of maternal death, with 31% of the deaths attributable to indirect obstetric causes.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7792749/

With these kinds of statistics, imagine how traumatic it could feel to see so many images of healthy white fetuses and babies. However, I have recently noticed an increase in the number of Black mothers enlisting the support and physical presence of Black doulas and midwives. I love to see it. With that type of support, little Black babies, like the one depicted in Ibe’s illustration, can have safe and healthy births.