Report about a nurse who told a Black patient not to scream during labor emerges.
Date: 2006
A report emerges of a nurse who told a Black woman to "close her mouth" during labor to stop her from screaming.
Bettye Jean Ford was in her second trimester when she developed a urinary tract infection. Sent home with antibiotics, she went into labor and, rather than being admitted to the emergency room, was given paperwork to fill out.
She was finally rushed into the emergency room, and told to close her mouth and not scream. She was sedated immediately following birth, so was not conscious when her premature newborn died soon after birth.
This is one concrete example of the profoundly unjust ways that Black pregnant people are treated during delivery across the nation.