Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Serena Williams - ignored by Doctors

38 replies

IndominusRex · 11/01/2018 15:27

That such a rich, successful woman, whose body is her tool, was refused treatment and not listened to by doctors post partum says a lot about how the medical profession treats women, especially black women.

OP posts:
Stopmakingsense · 11/01/2018 21:33

That graph is utterly shocking

PricklyBall · 11/01/2018 21:13

(The y axis is maternal deaths per 100,000 births).

PricklyBall · 11/01/2018 21:13

Wow, the graph on that link is so shocking, tribpot. I'm going to paste it in here just so people can see it.

Serena Williams - ignored by Doctors
Undercoverbanana · 11/01/2018 21:08

Jaygee61 - I think that's what happens when a woman is criticised for having a muscular physique. Over the years it has probably got in her head. She is fucking awesome. I love her.

Jaygee61 · 11/01/2018 21:02

I went off her bit when she said before having the baby that giving birth would make her a real woman.

tribpot · 11/01/2018 21:02

Samantha Bee has just covered the fact that maternal care in the US is dreadful - infant mortality is low but maternal mortality is the highest in the Western world - and it's increasing, which is a shocking statistic.

OlennasWimple · 11/01/2018 20:57

I bloody love Serena Williams

Renfrewshire · 11/01/2018 18:59

Yes it's crazy to think you are paying for the doctors to ignore you (in the US).

I wonder how much she had to push before the doctors did something, or whether they eventually thought "let's check this". A less assertive woman would probably not be alive to talk about it.

Original poster
IndominusRex · 11/01/2018 16:14

Yes Prickly it's great that she's shared this isn't it. It will help so many women both to speak up and to be reassured.

OP posts:
PricklyBall · 11/01/2018 16:07

Horrific to read about her symptoms being dismissed by the medical professionals - even when she told them exactly what was wrong and that she knew because she'd suffered from it before!

But hooray to read a really prominent and successful woman talk about the reality of motherhood (it may be that it's striking a particular chord with me, because I could have written that bit about "I have a beautiful baby, why am I crying?"). And hooray for feeling pissed off about the limitations of biology (as well as the wonders of it). I felt like it was years before I got my body back. Obviously not a pro tennis player or in any situation where it mattered, but little things like the fact that it took my vocal cords about 3 years to recover from the acid reflux - and I've never been able to sing quite as well as I used to be able to.

Oblomov18 · 11/01/2018 15:57

Good reading rather than All this : 'it was a breeze and I sprung back into shape in 3 weeks nonsense'.

fuzzywuzzy · 11/01/2018 15:33

That makes shocking reading.

After I had dd a midwife noticed I was really out of breath and I was pretty much immediately surrounded by doctors and nurses all checking to make sure I wasn’t unwell.

I was prescribed a course of blood thinners as I had a number of markers that put me at risk of suffering a blood clot.

But then the hospital I attended lost three mothers a few years back and had a complete overhaul of their anti natal department.

I’m shocked that the doctors refused to listen to Serena.
Especially if she had the baby in America she’s paying for it all!

OP posts: