‘Married To Medicine’ star, Dr. Jackie is addressing a viral clip of her talking down on black women experience pregnancy pains.
As we previously reported, on December 19, Twitter user @bakara_j posted an old clip of Dr. Jackie in a YouTube Live with her costar. In the clip, Dr. Jackie said, “As African American women, we’re a bit more dramatic, and that you go to the doctor and you complain and you complain and you complain and you’re not taken seriously because you cry wolf the entire pregnancy.”
She continued, “As African American women, We wanna also make sure that you’re being serious with your doctor and not playing the games so that could take you off work. Because then we see you 25 times in the pregnancy, it’s hard to believe there’s a true problem when there’s a true problem.”
Now in a new post, Dr. Jackie has addressed the backlash she’s received and said that her comments were taken out of context.
“Recently, a clip from a nearly 2 hour video was taken out of context to make it appear that I, somehow, take lightly, what I have advocated for concerning the devastating problem facing the Black maternal health crisis,” she wrote on her Instagram Thursday. “It has been my life’s work to highlight and attempt to rectify the issues that devastatingly impact Black maternal mothers versus our counterparts.”
She added, “As we continue to face medical mistreatment and gaslighting, my intention with the broader conversation was to ensure patients enter their pregnancies armed with information and tools to effectively communicate their needs with their doctors to ensure a positive outcome.”
Though she didn’t apologize for the clip, she concluded, “The reason I became an OBGYN is because growing up I saw such a lack of diversity amongst medical professionals, and was determined to be a part of the change. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, I will continue to fight for the lives of Black mothers and babies.”