Photo Essay: How a midwife is solving Houston’s Black maternal health crisis

This story is a part of an ongoing series reporting on the Black maternal health crisis in Harris County and different ways that providers are working to combat it.

Deshaun Desrosiers is one of the few Black midwives in the Houston area addressing maternal health care disparities among Black women by providing a safe, holistic alternative to standard hospital prenatal, labor and delivery, and postpartum care. Meridith Kohut and Houston Landing reporter Monique Welch followed Promise Ealy, one of Desrosiers’ patients, through her delivery. Ealy allowed them to be with her during this vulnerable and powerful moment, as she continued to take control over her health, and her baby’s, with the guidance of Desrosiers.

“Black women want to have Black doulas and midwives because they don’t have to code-switch,” Desrosiers said. “They can be open and honest and tell us what’s going on, we can help them with these things. They feel safe. They feel connected.”

As she labored for roughly another hour and a half, Desrosiers continued to encourage her, reminding her to keep breathing, listen to her body and to center her hips. As Ealy closed her eyes and breathed through contractions, Desrosiers simultaneously monitored Ealy’s progress and the baby’s heart rate, and updated Ealy’s charts on her laptop. At times when the contractions grew intense, Ealy clenched tightly to Desrosiers’ hand.

“There you go. That’s perfect. Perfect breathing,” Desrosiers said calmly to Ealy as she groaned a low-pitched “ahhh.”

At 11:02 p.m. after one hour and 43 minutes of active labor, Ealy gave birth to Ian Guilbeau, the couple’s third son, weighing 5 pounds and 2 ounces.

Ealy’s experience is a stark contrast to her first pregnancy where she had an epidural at a hospital, where she said she felt disregarded and patronized because doctors and nurses weren’t listening to her.

“Every single thing I brought up, it was: ‘You’re pregnant. That’s normal.’” Ealy said.

But she never got any guidance. After delivering her first son, the disregard continued. She was administered magnesium sulfate to treat preeclampsia that she had developed from her high blood pressure, she said.

As she floated in and out of consciousness, doctors continued to ignore her, she said.

“He just kept talking until he was done talking and then he left. Then once he left they’re like ‘oh sorry it was on.’”

“I could’ve died off that magnesium,” Ealy said.

After that experience, she vowed never to deliver in a hospital again and take her chances with a homebirth. 

Black patients are more than three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than their white counterparts, due to a variety of factors from variation in quality health care, underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit bias, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths were preventable, according to the CDC. 

“They bring their kids, they bring their man, they bring grandma, grandpa, all that so they can get all the questions [answered],” she said. “I’m getting to know everybody. 
And I do that for the whole pregnancy. So I basically become a central part of their family. I know all their business.”

“She gave me the pros and cons and she left it up to me,” she said. “I could definitely tell the difference with DeShaun. She actually cared about me. She cared about the health of my baby and that really made me like yeah ‘I gotta stay here. I’m not going to anyone else.’”

Photography by Meridith Kohut.

Editing by Lexi Parra and Antranik Tavitian.

Text excerpts based on reporting and writing by Monique Welch.

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