Native, Black doulas say culturally specific birth care could help reduce high maternal death...

After Jazmin Williams gave birth in 2009, she suffered from uterine prolapse — when the uterus slips out of place.

But when she tried to tell the nurse, she said, “I’m trying to point to her [that] my uterus is outside me, and she hits me. She hits my hand, tells me, ‘Don’t touch.’ And I go and tell the doctor but she tells the doctor that I’m exaggerating. And that was it.”

They didn’t evaluate or treat her condition.

She went home, where she developed a second complication and had to be rushed back to the hospital, where she was seen by an ER doctor.

“He just told me to lay back so he could see what was going on and then immediately just started operating,” Williams said.

Williams said he didn’t tell her what he was about to do, obtain her consent, or offer anesthesia.