Dying to Give Birth: What the Death of Dr. Janelle Green Smith Reveals About Black Maternal Care

By Felicia Brookins, Award Winning Author and Screenwriter• 5 min read

The death of Dr. Janelle Green Smith, a certified nurse midwife and Doctor of Nursing Practice, is both devastating and deeply revealing. She died on January 2, 2026, shortly after giving birth to her first child. Her passing has reignited a national conversation about the Black maternal health crisis and exposed a painful truth: no amount of education, professional expertise, or preparation can fully protect Black women from medical neglect and dismissiveness in America.

The discussion around Black Maternal Health is critical, as it highlights the systemic issues affecting Black women in maternal care.

Understanding the Challenges of Black Maternal Health

Dr. Green Smith dedicated her career to improving maternal outcomes and preventing childbirth complications. Yet even with advanced credentials and an intimate understanding of maternal health systems, she did not survive the very experience she worked to make safer for others.

Improving Black Maternal Health requires acknowledging the obstacles that women face in our healthcare systems.

Her death underscores a term gaining increased attention: obstetric racism, the systemic discrimination and mistreatment historically faced by women of color, particularly Black women, during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care. It reflects a reality Black women have long understood: too often, the healthcare system fails to value Black lives equally.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes than white women. This disparity crosses socioeconomic lines. Whether a woman is a physician, midwife, entertainer, or working class mother, her risk remains significantly higher.

It is imperative to address the disparities in Black Maternal Health to ensure equitable treatment for all mothers.

These outcomes are not accidental. They are driven by systemic racism, implicit bias, and the persistent dismissal of Black women’s pain and concerns.

Health experts agree that many pregnancy related deaths are preventable. Risk is reduced when providers listen carefully, recognize urgent warning signs, respond quickly, and deliver respectful, high quality care. Yet for many Black women, these fundamental standards remain inconsistent.

Providers must prioritize Black Maternal Health in order to reduce risks for mothers and their babies.

This disregard is not new. Its roots stretch back to slavery and Jim Crow, when Black bodies were routinely dehumanized and exploited. Enslaved people were often denied medical care, punished for illness, and forced to labor through extreme pain. False beliefs, such as the myth that Black people have a higher tolerance for pain, were used to justify neglect. Disturbingly, echoes of these myths still influence medical treatment today.

For many Black mothers, the fear carried into hospitals is not imagined. It is inherited. Historical abuses and modern day disparities reinforce a troubling message: our pain is questioned, our voices doubted, and our lives too often undervalued.

The impact of historical abuses continues to be felt in Black Maternal Health today.

Even public figures are not immune. Actress Keshia Knight Pulliam has spoken openly about experiencing racial bias after giving birth, recalling how a lactation specialist made assumptions about her financial status based solely on race. Without assessing her needs, the specialist immediately directed her toward assistance programs, an interaction shaped not by evidence, but by stereotype.

These moments reveal a broader issue: racialized assumptions that influence the quality of care Black patients receive.

Understanding the nuances of Black Maternal Health is essential for improving care delivery.

For many Black women, childbirth feels less like a celebration and more like a calculated risk. Medical bias and historical neglect have transformed what should be a joyful milestone into an experience shadowed by vigilance.

Symptoms are minimized. Pain is second guessed. Concerns are reframed as exaggeration or misunderstanding. A quiet but dangerous blame the patient mentality continues to operate within parts of a medical culture that has yet to fully confront its past.

Recognizing the importance of Black Maternal Health can lead to more respectful treatment of patients.

Black women often enter hospitals aware that they may need to advocate aggressively simply to be heard. Generations of poor treatment, medical experimentation, disbelief, and preventable loss linger in collective memory, and those memories are reinforced each time a warning sign is ignored.

The life expectancy gap between Black and white Americans, particularly in maternal outcomes, reflects institutional failures and an ongoing reluctance to confront racism within healthcare systems.

Advocacy for Black Maternal Health is crucial in addressing the institutional failures within healthcare.

Black women are dying, in part, because they are not being believed.

Dr. Janelle Green Smith’s death must serve as more than a moment of mourning. It is a call to action, a demand for accountability, reform, and humanity.

We must all commit to improving Black Maternal Health to protect future generations.

Her life and career remind us that expertise does not guarantee safety within a system that too often devalues Black bodies. If a highly trained midwife could not rely on that system to protect her, then the system itself demands scrutiny.

Until Black women are listened to, respected, and treated with the urgency their lives deserve, preventable deaths will continue.

Raising awareness about Black Maternal Health can drive the necessary reforms in the healthcare system.

As a mother, I cannot accept this as normal.
As a Black woman, I know it has been normalized for far too long.

Our bodies matter.
Our health matters.
We are not disposable, and we should not have to die to prove we deserve to be heard.

Only through collective effort can we ensure that Black Maternal Health is prioritized and respected.