Tatyana Ali Addresses Racial Bias in Maternal Healthcare

Tatyana Ali is an outspoken advocate for Black women’s maternal health. Ali recently reflected on the harrowing 2016 delivery of her son, Edward. Referring to what happened to her as “obstetric violence,” the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actress, 47, shared the story on the April 27 episode of Pod Meets World with host Danielle Fishel. Ali said the experience was so dangerous it could have killed her son. 

"I mean, I'll be real with you: They pushed him back inside me," Ali said. "My baby was all the way crowned."

Ali explained that the maneuver was “not a real procedure.”

“In my records, it shows that [Edward] goes from the lowest station — I saw his hair, I touched his hair — to the highest station, and it doesn't say how that happened.”

“It's an incredibly dangerous thing that they did,” Ali shared. “They could have snapped his neck. But this is after hours of them holding me down, not allowing me to move." 

The actress/singer said that her pregnancy had been perfectly healthy. "All of that changed once we got into the hospital,” Ali explained. 

After the birth, Edward, now 9, spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) due to complications Tatyana attributed to his delivery. 

“He couldn't pee on his own for a long time, about five or six days,” she explained. “Actually, it was a pediatric urologist who [was] the only one who came to my side and said, ‘I saw what happened during your birth, the things that resulted in this emergency C-section.’ She said, ‘I think the traumatic nature of his birth is what is causing this.’”

According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2023, the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births and was significantly higher than rates for White (14.5), Hispanic (12.4), and Asian (10.7) women. 

Since her experience, Ali has since turned what happened to her and her child into an opportunity for advocacy. She learned that her ordeal is actually “very commonplace,” in particular, among women of color.

"It's been happening for a very long time," she shared. "Black women are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth. And I think a lot of times people go, 'Oh, well, those are other health risks.'"

She’s now advocating for a better understanding of maternal health and for better practices when medical professionals are tasked with caring for Black women. She’s speaking out for women who don’t have a platform to do so. 

“I'm supposed to say something because all the people I'm talking to, no one puts a mic in their face,” she concluded. “It kind of just was like, ‘God, I'm going to take all the things you give me — the good and the bad — and do something with it.’”

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