Black women are dying. And it’s because our doctors aren’t listening to us. Black women are facing a deadly health crisis, as they and their newborns are the most likely in the United States to die from pregnancy complications. This Mother’s Day, it’s time to really examine what is causing the black maternal mortality epidemic — and why medical professionals must learn to trust black women to stop it.

Last month, a New York Times cover story set out to answer this question: Why are black mothers and babies in a life-or-death crisis? Maternal mortality disproportionately burdens black women. Many die within just a year after delivering their babies. Black women are up to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes and more than twice as likely to experience severe maternal morbidity compared to white women.

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There are a multitude of factors that contribute to this.

Lack of access to quality health care and racism exacerbate the general physical and emotional toil that comes to any woman who has gone through childbirth. Additionally, there is a shocking shortage of representation in the medical field. The lack of black health care providers, including OB-GYN and nurse midwives, is one of the reasons that we cannot get the culturally competent care we need.

A report on the state of black women and reproductive justice found that only 6 percent of physicians, 4 percent of OB-GYN and fewer than 4 percent of certified nurse midwives are black. However, there is an even deeper problem: The inherent distrust of black women by medical professionals. Doctors don’t listen to us and they write off or completely ignore the reality of our pain.

Even black women with higher economic status cannot get the proper care they need because of a deeply ingrained racism. We saw this when Serena Williams — the superstar tennis player, philanthropist and entrepreneur — nearly lost her life after giving birth to her daughter, Olympia. She wrote about the impact of racism on the care that black women receive.

Civil rights activist Erica Garner died just four months after delivering her son. Since the New York Times report, numerous black mothers have come forward to share their own stories of being undermined by doctors and suffering major complications because of it.

Black women find ourselves at the intersection of sexism and racism in medicine. We carry the burden of institutionalized racism and extreme physical and physiological stress that accompanies that burden. We know our bodies, yet when we seek help, we are ignored — both because we are black and because we are women.

According to a national poll of black adults, black mothers of children under 18 are particularly made to feel unsafe in their bodies. From over-policing to sub-par health-care access, systemic racism is killing black women.

This anxiety takes huge tolls on not only our mental, but also our physical health. Poverty and racism have a cumulative impact on our bodies before, during, and after pregnancy. On top of this, we are less likely to receive timely and consistent prenatal care. Our mothers and our children deserve better.

Ensuring black women’s right to access high-quality, affordable health care before, during and after pregnancy is a basic human rights issue. Our dignity, our bodies and our lives are violated when we suffer because of discrimination by medical professionals.

We need to improve our health-care system and increase access to quality care for black communities. There needs to be consequences when obvious discrimination impacts our medical care. It’s time to hold the health-care industry accountable for their deadly actions. It’s time for health-care professionals to listen to black women and trust us. We know our bodies and we know what is best for our health and wellbeing.

Marcela Howell is the founder and executive director of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda.