Hello my lovelies, trust you are doing well and welcome to the first Fisayo speak in the year 2020. I have wanted to speak on this controversial topic for a long time because I myself have gone through this loss and I have unanswered questions.
In the light of BLM, I thought I will speak on the issues of pregnancy loss in black women not to dismiss that it doesn’t happen to other women of a different race, it does but just for this post, I want to focus on black women. Research has shown that 1 in 2500 black women will experience some form of pregnancy loss be it stillbirth, preterm birth, or infant death.
During my research, I just couldn’t find a concrete reason as to why this is and to be honest, the reason I found is very vague. Some said, the fact that we are black we are susceptible to a lot of risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, premature rupture of membrane, uterine bleeding, placental abnormalities, and problems with the umbilical cord in labor. And the best way to reduce this issue is too pretty much have a healthy lifestyle, learn warning signs (which if it’s your first you probably will have no idea), and consult your doctor regularly. In the UK, you need to be at least 8 weeks before a doctor sees you and afterward you get seen every two weeks which then changes to every week in your 30 weeks period.
When I had my miscarriage on the 1st of January 2016 and it was over 8 weeks and I was considered healthy, I asked why and the doctor’s response was we don’t know why as these things just happen which I truly didn’t find comfort in then and still don’t now. This makes you question yourself and second-guessing your actions when pregnant and please just know it is not your fault this happened.
The only study that stood out to me was the study carried out the Virginia commonwealth university which was able to identify a small gene variation called SERPINH1 in black women. They suggest this gene produces collagen which is one of the components of the amniotic sac (the water the baby grows in). They also suggest that 12% of black women carry this gene and women with this gene carries a high risk of losing their baby. My question to this is why is their one study about this and can this be implemented into normal routine check to know who carries this gene or not?
Another study which was carried out by Macherjee et al, 2013, conducted a study of 4070 and 932 where black women. They concluded that there were 537 losses, and 23% of losses were from black women which were caused by behavioral and physiological facts as I listed above.
I want to hear your thought on this issue and do you think there are enough studies out there to help narrow the causes?
Meilifisayo xxx
Meili Fisayo 
I think there should be more studies to be honest and so sorry about your loss.Thank you for sharing your experience xx
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Thank you so much I think there should be too x
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First, I’m sorry about your loss. Secondly, I think genetics and how our body is does take part in it, but also I feel there’s a little bit less lack of care for black women. I don’t think we are treated as well or with as much care by doctors as others. I can’t talk from experience, but just from how the world treats us in general and seeing other black women’s stories online.
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I totally see your point I nearly wrote about this as well but I had to stick to facts. And you are right one of the biggest issues is discrimination and doctors thinking black women are strong and they should be fine. Hence, why our concern are mostly over looked or brushed off. This is a whole deep conversation on is own.
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I think more studies should be conducted. However, I want there to be solutions to help Black women.
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You are absolutely right as I feel the same way… just like BLM We need to address this too
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Sorry for your loss. I always thought black women losing pregnancies disproportionately had to do with receiving less medical attention than our other counterparts. We tend to looked upon as over exaggerating our concerns and pain. For example, it’s why the white community was hit harder with the opioid epidemic than black ppl because medical personnel will listen to them and emphasize with their plight than they do us. I think bias is a contributory factor.
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