Natasha Weems Interviewed Dr. Tina Koopersmith, Board-Certified OB/GYN & Fertility Specialist

Black women in the United States are dying from pregnancy-related causes at rates 2 to 4 times higher than white women. In 2023 alone, the maternal mortality rate for Black women reached 50 deaths per 100,000 live births — and if current trends continue, that number could nearly double to 94 by 2040.This episode is not just a conversation. It is a document of record.Dr. Natasha Weems sits down with fertility and maternal health specialist Dr. Tina Koopersmith to trace the full arc of this crisis — from J. Marion Sims performing experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women without anesthesia in 1844, to the viral videos of Karrie Jones and Mercedes Wells being ignored in labor in 2025. The throughline is unbroken: Black women's pain has never been taken seriously in American medicine.Together they discuss the data, the history, the systemic failures, and what real change looks like from the inside of a clinical practice committed to equitable, human-centered care.