Two Black mothers, labor pains mounting, arrived at hospitals expecting safety and routine deliveries. Instead, delayed care in Indiana and Texas pushed both women and their babies to the brink, underscoring a maternal health system that too often fails Black families. In one case, a nurse suggested discharging Mercedes Wells even after her water had broken, and she begged, “Please don’t discharge me because I am about to have this baby.” She left in agony and delivered her daughter on the side of a highway.
In Texas, video shows Kiara Jones screaming in pain in a triage area as her family says staff left her waiting more than 30 minutes before moving her to labor and delivery; she gave birth minutes after finally being admitted. Her mother can be heard asking, “Y’all treat all your patients like this or just the Black ones?” Both ordeals, amplified on social media, have become vivid illustrations of a national crisis.
Black women die around childbirth at nearly 3.5 times the rate of white women, and recent federal data show their mortality rate barely declined even as rates fell for white, Hispanic and Asian women. Advocates and families link these disparities to systemic racism, implicit bias and false assumptions about Black patients’ pain tolerance that slow triage and blunt emergency responses.
Leaders from the National Black Nurses Association and reproductive justice group SisterSong say Black women, regardless of income or education, are “not trusted or listened to.” For Wells and her husband, the experience has shattered trust. “There needs to be a big change as far as people needing to show empathy,” Leon Wells said. “If you’re in this field of caring for others when they need you, care.”
See: “Delayed care to 2 Black pregnant women highlights maternal health disparities” (December 8, 2025)
