Dr. Jackie Walters is finally addressing the backlash she has received after a video resurfaced of her making controversial comments about Black pregnant women.
The Married to Medicine star went on her Instagram story to speak about the video that was streamed three years ago on YouTube. “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 in the now-deleted post.
She continued, “It has been my life’s work to highlight and attempt to rectify the issues that devastatingly impact Black maternal mothers versus our counterparts. As a physician, I educate my patients every day to be their own best health advocate. 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.”
Dr. Walters added, “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, I will continue to fight for the lives of Black mothers and babies.”
In the 2020 stream, Dr. Walters was speaking with Dr. Heavenly Kimes when she said, “Sometimes 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, “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.”