Empowerment and Resilience in Black and Brown Parenting - Episode 67
Today, we're talking with my friend Chelsea Samms, who is a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nurse. This episode dives deep into a topic that's close to our hearts and impacts our communities greatly: the institutional racism within our healthcare system and its disproportionate effects on Black American families. We're tackling the tough reality of how systemic biases can lead to unfair and often harmful treatment in medical care for Black moms and their babies. It's not just about personal experiences; it's about a widespread issue that demands attention and action. Chelsea and I are here to share insights, stories, and strategies on advocating for the rights and well-being of Black families navigating the healthcare system. Together, we're envisioning and working towards a future where healthcare equity is a reality for everyone.
About our guest:
Chelsea Samms, BSN, RN, CPST, is a beacon of leadership and innovation in the nursing field, with a career deeply rooted in neonatal care, education, and entrepreneurial ventures aimed at transforming healthcare. As a NICU nurse with a rich background in maternal-newborn health, Chelsea has dedicated herself to bridging the gap in health equity, fostering diversity, and promoting inclusion across patient care spectrums. Currently advancing her expertise through a Master of Science in Nursing Education, she is fervently working towards nurturing the next wave of nursing leaders and educators. Chelsea's entrepreneurial spirit shines through her ownership of "I Know Newborns, LLC," where she focuses on combating health disparities in newborn care and championing the rights of marginalized communities. With a skill set that spans leadership, business development, and advocacy, she excels in environments that challenge her to innovate and lead change. Chelsea is on a continuous quest to collaborate with fellow professionals who are as committed to nursing excellence, healthcare innovation, and making a societal impact as she is, aiming together to sculpt a brighter, healthier future for all.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: What's up, my financially intentional people. We are joined by Chelsea Sam today, and she is a no newbie to the podcast. She was on the nurses on fire podcast quite a few years ago, actually. So it's an honor to have her back and I want to bring her back because I really think we need to talk about just having a child as a black and brown person in the United States.
It's a lot. Having a child yourself is not straightforward. And I think as a whole, we do a lot to underprepare, but with infant morbidity and mortality rates through two to three times higher for black and brown moms and babies, I think it's important that we, Understand everyone of a childbearing age understand what we are facing in this country and most importantly, how to prepare for that.
Chelsea, thank you for coming back. I [00:01:00] appreciate you being on.
Chelsea Samms: Yes. Thank you for having me.
Naseema: And first, let's get a little bit of background on you as a nurse how long you've been a nurse, what have you seen, what have you done?
Chelsea Samms: All right. My name is Chelsea. I am a NICU nurse.
Naseema: What does the NICU stand for? Not everybody knows.
NICU stands for neonatal intensive care unit. I have been a nurse since, 20. I graduated 2015. I passed my boards in 2016. I've been working since 2016. So I actually started out originally in mother Baby with goals of doing labor and delivery, but that didn't work out.
Chelsea Samms: And then I ended up in the nicu. Currently I am a travel nurse. I'm not on a contract right now, but I've been all over the country. I've seen. All different types of NICUs from the busiest to the sickest of the sick to the simplest and grower feeders. And yeah, that's a little bit about just my nursing background.
I'm, I reside in Jersey, but I'm from New [00:02:00] York. Actually my last contract was out in Los Angeles, so I've just been, yeah, I've been all over. I've been to Minnesota, Philly, New York state and New York city, Philly, New Jersey, all over the place. So that's a little bit about my NICU nursing background.
Naseema: Yeah. And for those that don't know, a child what are the qualifications for a baby to end up in the NICU?
Chelsea Samms: Oh, there's a whole bunch of reasons, but, but in general premature babies, and it depends on the hospital, what they would, constitute as an automatic NICU admission. So you're looking at probably 35 weeks or 34 weeks or less. Typically they will end up in the NICU. If it's a full term baby if, If the baby comes out and is just not looking too well or needs some respiratory support or maybe their glucose is [00:03:00] low those are reasons for a full term kid to be admitted into the NICU or if there are any genetic abnormalities going on that needs, Very intensive care and a close attention.
A baby would go to the NICU for that, but for the most part, we see a lot of premature babies as the main reason for being an admission to the NICU.
Naseema: And premature babies are anywhere usually 36 weeks and under. But depending on what they look like when they come out, they typically go to the NICU. So as a labor and delivery nurse, but never have been in the NICU, but definitely having Send kids to the NICU I definitely respect what you guys do because it's hard dealing with those little lives.
Like it's, it's, I'm there and I often am the baby resuscitator and they are for me. It's scary because
Chelsea Samms: yeah.
Naseema: in that [00:04:00] trend, that transition period from birth and to the first couple hours of life, a lot, there's a lot of variables and a lot of things that can go wrong.
But specifically there are certain things that. like in communities of color that tend to happen. Based on a number of factors, the biggest thing is a lot of implicit bias and not really having a healthcare system that was set up to support different people, medical textbooks that don't really have images of people.
That look like us
and so on and so forth. So there are a lot of things, but I want to know, like in your years of a NICU nurse, what are some things that you have seen that new parents should be prepared for when, thinking about the birthing process and transitioning that kid home?
Chelsea Samms: mean, you hit it right on the nail when you talked about the implicit bias, but just knowing that [00:05:00] racism exists still institutionalized racism exists and there is a trickle down effect from, we're talking a lot about today about the maternal black maternal health crisis in the United States.
There is definitely a trickle down effect into. So the implicit bias that we're seeing and the effects that we're seeing on the moms, we're also seeing in turn on the babies. So why are the black infant mortality rates double those of our white counterpart? what is the reason? And the research that I've done and the things that I've seen, there really is no reason outside of institutionalized racism and implicit bias.
There have been multiple studies that correct for socioeconomic status. There are multiple studies that correct for age and education level. And contrary to what popular belief is, Of the the moms that have the highest education is almost where we're seeing the [00:06:00] highest infant mortality rates and morbidity rates.
Naseema: hmm.
Chelsea Samms: And why is that? You would think, the more education you have under your belt, the more it would be a protective factor, but it's not. And so just knowing that you have to be your own advocate for yourself and your future baby is one of the biggest things that I can, Tell new parents new black and brown parents is yes, you do need to Educate yourselves on the birthing process and after the birthing process and equip yourself with all of the tools But just know that sometimes it's not you being underprepared
Naseema: It totally is that, we turn to the health care system to provide services that obviously we can't do ourselves. And we often. Face health care coming from a position of vulnerability, right? We need help for something and, in our situations, it's giving birth.
It's bringing life into this world, which is one of the most [00:07:00] vulnerable experiences that you'll ever go through. You are literally. Bringing life into this world and like I said, there's so many things, so many variables that could turn that from a positive thing to a very unfortunate circumstance, especially if your best interest isn't always at heart.
And it's so disheartening to say that. Like us coming into like just from the moment that we realized that we're pregnant to being able to take that baby home, you have to have an advocate for you, you have to have someone who you can trust to speak on your behalf, to bounce ideas off of, because again, this healthcare system has really failed us and it's so sad.
Chelsea Samms: Yeah Yeah, it definitely has And I I think another thing that I would want black and brown parents to know is that there are healthcare providers that [00:08:00] have an unconscious bias that they don't even know.
Naseema: Mm-Hmm.
Chelsea Samms: I share, I've shared this story before and I'm not going to stop sharing it. So I'm going to say it again because people need to know.
I'll never forget. There was one day I was assigned to be on deliveries for the NICU. And so if there was a NICU admission, I was up in labor and delivery, basically doing the admission. And I remember we knew about this baby that was coming ahead of time. So we were prepared. It wasn't a surprise.
We were stabilizing her and the doctor or the, I would say the NP came in that was handling her case. And basically said, Hey, what's going on? Like basically asking for an SBAR, some background information on the baby so that she could put orders in and, doing her initial assessment.
So I'm answering all her questions and I'm telling her, I forget what the baby was born with. It was some type of condition and it was a little black girl. And she was also premature, so she was premature, she was black, and she has, [00:09:00] I don't know, let's say it was a cardiac condition. And the MP walks in, she gets the background, she's oh, she's black, and she's a girl, she'll be fine.
They're strong. They do well. She's gonna be, she, they're strong. And so I'm like, damn, straight out the womb, we gotta be strong black girl, so I just need, I need black and brown parents to know that that is the unconscious bias that is playing in some providers minds. In the moment, I didn't, necessarily stop her and say anything because it wasn't until after the fact, and I was like on adrenaline trying to stabilize the kid.
But it wasn't until after the fact where I was like, damn, did she really just say that? That is so crazy. On day of life, zero. We're so expected. Day of life zero, we're expected to just come out the womb and be strong and be bout it and, fight the good fight. Whereas if it [00:10:00] were, a, white male.
With the same condition, same gestational age, they would be calling him, quote unquote, wimpy white boy. Have you ever heard that?
Naseema: Wow. I've never heard that.
Chelsea Samms: Oh, that is a term. They throw out the term and I hate it when they say it. They call some babies. They say wimpy white boy, but they throw the kitchen sink at them, right?
To help them
Naseema: So, yeah, so how that translates is is usually how that translates in care is that usually instead of taking approaches to initiate medications or therapies that could help ease this transit this baby into transitioning, they often leave these babies on their own and just observe them as opposed to doing really simple interventions providing supplemental oxygen.
Okay. providing hydration checking blood sugars supplementing with, sugars or supplementing with formula, all these things that can help ease the baby's [00:11:00] transition. They often just leave these babies and just say, Oh, just monitor them. So you get a whole nother level of care, just not based off of.
Anything but an objective view that little brown women in particular are stronger
Chelsea Samms: Right.
Naseema: it's not based on medical evidence. Let me just say is not is not. So from the day these babies are born. They are automatically receiving less treatment. They're automatically stigmatized. And so people need to understand that that means they need to speak up.
babies can't speak up. Oftentimes you don't even speak up for yourself, but you need to be empowered to speak up for your baby. If this, if you are concerned about something going on with your baby, ask questions, demand treatments. [00:12:00] Don't leave. I see all too often people getting discharged and not feeling like they were ready to go home
Chelsea Samms: Mm.
Naseema: not because they're just comfortable there because there's still something going on.
Blood sugars haven't been stabilized. Stabilized feedings haven't been correctly established. People don't understand the medications on how to treat their babies, all those kind of things. And it's just because people are
Say something.
Chelsea Samms: If there's one thing that I'm gonna do, and this is, this is universal, I don't care if you're black, white, brown, Puerto Rican, Haitian, yellow, whatever, anything in between. I sit down and I take my time during discharge education. And, it don't matter if I need to use an interpreter, it's gonna take double the amount of time.
I'm gonna make sure every single question is answered. No matter how stupid you might think the question is, I want you to ask it. Because that could be a life or death question, like God forbid, [00:13:00] you didn't feel comfortable enough to ask, like your discharging nurse or any of your providers a question about your baby and you just wing it when you get home and now you're readmitted to the hospital, right?
So if there's one thing I'm going to do, I'm going to sit down. I'm going to pull up a chair. I'm letting you know you need to be going to be sitting here for at least 30 minutes talking about how to take care of your baby at home. It's helpful when, nurses do discharge instructions along the way, but sometimes that doesn't always happen, right?
Sometimes you're sitting down and it's the day of discharge and your baby's going home and nobody's gone over. Formula preparation, nobody's gone over, how frequently you should be feeding your kid, what to do if this happens, when to call 911, nobody's gone over that stuff. So now we have to sit here for 30 minutes and talk to each other.
Naseema: No, but it's good that you take the time out to do that because oftentimes you get after visit summary or your discharge summary, just print it out and hand it to you and it's like, all right, have [00:14:00] a good day. And people don't sit there and walk you through it. So, the most important thing that people need to know is that they, their voice matters, what they're feeling matters and instinctively, when something is wrong, you instinctively, when something is wrong with the baby, but to be able to use your voice.
And know that you're not tripping. You are not tripping. I think just hearing that and knowing that they have an opportunity or they have options in order to make sure that their kids are being taken care of. You can't take everything that medical providers say at face value, especially if it's not sitting right with you.
And there are options, but oftentimes people don't know. Like they're scared to speak up. Or they're scared to go up the chain of command or they don't even know that there's a chain of command that they can push the issue. So let's walk through that. Like someone comes, their baby's in the NICU, the baby's about to get discharged from the [00:15:00] NICU.
This is a baby, a preemie baby that has sugar issues, have feeding issues, maybe going home with a feeding tube. And a patient that they're going to send home. But the mom is feeling like. She doesn't really, she's not very comfortable. She doesn't know what to do. What are her options?
Chelsea Samms: So first and foremost, you, if you're talking about chain of command, you're starting. at the bottom. So you're going to talk to your discharge nurse first, right? So whoever is in charge of facilitating your discharge, voice those concerns. If you feel like you're not reaching any type of resolution with just, your bedside nurse, then you can ask to talk to the charge nurse.
And hopefully the charge nurse can provide some resolution. If we're continuing up the nursing chain of command. After the charge nurse some places have like nurse leaders before you reach management [00:16:00] or An assistant nurse manager so a nurse leader or an assistant nurse manager, and then the last would be the nurse manager there's never really the last so obviously you can go all the way up to the CNO But that you shouldn't have to get to that point And start with your bedside nurse, then your charge nurse, you should hopefully get a resolution and some type of encouragement and reassurance from talking to the charge nurse.
the chains of commands are separate between nursing and the medical team. So the chain of command with the medical team, you can definitely involve them. You want to start at the lowest, which is usually the resident or some places don't have residents. So it's a fellow or a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant.
So you start there and you voice your concerns and hopefully you get reassurance. If you really feel like it's unsafe to have your baby discharged, you want to utilize what we call cuss words. And so you say that you are concerned, you feel that it is unsafe for your [00:17:00] baby to go home and the buzzword is concerned.
So as soon as you say, as soon as a parent or a healthcare provider, here's a parent say that they are concerned that is supposed to trigger something in our minds to say, hold on, let's stop and reassess. And then obviously, at the top of the chain for the medical team are the attendings. Attending fellow resident and P, or physician assistant, that's your options of escalating things.
So you want to start with your bedside nurse and you voice your concerns.
And if you don't reach any resolution or reassurance then you can ask to talk to your charge nurse. So the charge nurse is usually the nurse that's in charge for the day they're managing all the bed spaces and the assignment and what have you and. Staffing and all that stuff. And the charge nurse Hopefully, we should be able to provide some type of resolution or re insurance to you.
And if that doesn't work, then you have the option of talking [00:18:00] to, some places have a nurse leader in between bedside and management. So you can ask to speak to a nurse leisure, assistant nurse manager, and then manager. Hopefully you should not have to go all the way up to the CNO of the hospital.
Hopefully you don't need to go there. But that's essentially the nursing chain of command. The medical chain of command with the medical team is a little bit different. It was separate. And so you would start with some hospitals have residents. So you would start with your resident.
If there is no resident oftentimes there might be a nurse practitioner or a physician, a physician assistant on the team. So you would ask to speak to them, you voice your concerns. If those options are not really cutting it, then you can ask to speak to the fellow who should be above those people.
And then after that is the attending the neonatologist. Hopefully you don't have to go all the way up to the tippy top to get yourself heard, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes.
Naseema: Yeah, there's also [00:19:00] sometimes ombudsman in the hospital that help resolve those issues. Sometimes there's committees in the nursing chain to come in before you get to the CNO level. You might talk to the house supervisor as well. But just know that there's levels, right?
And the goal of the. The reason why we tell you this is that you keep on pushing and go up that level until you feel like Your concerns are heard and sometimes your concerns aren't heard in the hospital. You still going through all those levels, you still feel unheard. And there's oftentimes compliance lines or help lines that they have outside resources or resources that are like separately governed to help you with that.
But at the end of the day, if you really don't feel heard the sooner you can get an attorney to represent you in these cases the better. And what ends up happening is, is that we oftentimes don't want to be the squeaky wheel, but we're doing it to the detriment [00:20:00] of the health of our kids, the health of ourselves.
And so it's not helpful to stay quiet. And a lot of the reasons why these things continue to continue to persist is because not a lot of people speak up. The more people that speak up, the more the system has to change around that, around what's going on and understand that these issues where, aren't specifically just for black and brown people, these issues affect everyone.
It's just that. The percentage of the amount of times it happens to people is exponentially more. But as nurses and as administrators if we start making changes to address those concerns that happen to black and brown people, we're in effect changing and bettering care for everyone. So it's not just isolated oh, we're just going to focus on this group of people and making sure their outcomes are better.[00:21:00]
Once we focus on. Improving outcomes for one group of people, everybody benefits. And it's interesting. I just had this conversation last week talking about DEI and, there was a lot of initiative around DEI in 2020 around George Floyd and all these kinds of things where companies all of a sudden took interest in making sure that they were addressing these concerns that had been systemic issues for a long, long time, right?
So these are things that have happened over the last couple last hundred years or so, right? And so now we're trying to reverse these things. But I think in the last year or so, especially when we're seeing all these layoffs in different industries, those are some of the programs and things that are getting cut.
And I'm saying is diversity, equity, inclusion work is something that was helping address some of those more maternal and fetal morbidity [00:22:00] and mortality rates. And now that stuff is really being Those programs are going away. We're not seeing that push anymore. Just because it's not, front, it's not front page news anymore.
It's not a hot topic anymore. What is your take on the importance of DDI work, especially in healthcare?
Chelsea Samms: I think the proof is in the pudding. Clearly there's some type of disconnect between DEI and healthcare and the outcomes that we're seeing. So everybody always wants to say, you can make the argument of all lives matter type of thing. But yeah, we know that and we're going to do.
what we know works for everybody, but clearly something is missing when it comes to black and brown moms, black and brown babies. So are we really doing what needs to be done to facilitate change?
We're not, I'm in school for my nurse, my [00:23:00] master's in nursing education, and I had to write a paper on some type of new intervention.
And I was doing some research and all my papers that I write for school are related to babies. And what I found in my research is that we're doing all these community health programs and nonprofit organizations and giving money to this. But. We're not seeing change in the numbers. So something's got to give, we got to do something different, right?
And something different is not being done in order to facilitate change. And so what is it? Do we need to start intervening more at the critical care level? Do more interventions need to be done there in terms of DEI and, bringing more attention to the infant mortality rates and the black maternal health crisis?
Is that what we need to do? I'm sure the community efforts are doing something, but it's not enough, in my opinion. And so I just feel like, [00:24:00] obviously DEI is going to be the first thing to get cut, but it should be the last thing to get cut. Because we see so much disparity and health inequity across the nation.
But, who am I? Just I feel like
Naseema: Yeah, it's the thing, that's the thing if it's not generating buzz, it often gets squeaked under the rug, even though, like I said, these initiatives are to make sure everybody gets treated differently, depending on, your ability level. Your sexual orientation, like all of those things get wrapped into this DEI work.
But oftentimes I think people think the solution is if you have a black doctor, then everything will be solved. Or you have more black and brown doctors, it's going to solve the problem. Not necessarily. It's, it's about, yeah, the diversity. Yeah, sure. And it needs to be there. But, Not if they're being trained under the same educational system that is [00:25:00] supporting these implicit biases that's supporting this medical racism.
The same that's going on. So it has to be a systemic approach to fix the systemic problem. It just can't be like one focus on one thing. And it's, and like I said, it's. Took hundreds of years for us to get here, and it's going to take a while for us to be able to work our way out of it. And it's just sad to see that a lot of those initiatives, if they haven't gone away, they're losing funding or losing priority in how it's being addressed in patient care setting.
Chelsea Samms: And, I want to just touch upon when you mentioned, having black providers, because I do encourage my friends that are preparing to have a baby to get black and black
and
Naseema: hmm.
Chelsea Samms: try to find them. But I also give with that little caveat that. Not all black and brown providers are created equal. So do your research,
Naseema: Yes,
Chelsea Samms: know, really do your research because I've heard a number of stories where, [00:26:00] the provider was black or brown and they still had a bad experience.
And I, I, I like that you hit it right on the head when you said, some of the black and brown providers are being trained by the old school. White, set in their ways counterparts that is passing on their education through them kind of as a medium. So you gotta be careful.
Naseema: Yeah, definitely. I just feel like we have such a long way to go but I've seen things pop up like centering groups where people can share experiences and stories. I've seen private consultancies, like kind of pop up to support black women and brown women in their labor as an extra level of protection against these issues.
So I was part of a centering group that I, that was separate from what my medical provider, my regular OB and. It was ran by an OB and I was in a cohort group with pregnant women around [00:27:00] the same gestational age as me. But it included lactation support. It included mental health support.
And, it was an extra layer. If I felt like my labs were off or somebody was telling me something different, it was a second pair of eyes to be like, Hmm, I really think that you should have been put on this medication or you didn't need that medication, here are some talking points to go back to your doctor with.
And so these kinds of groups. Have sprung up in response but they are so few and far between so you really need to know What your options are out there and plus, you know These are things you have to pay out of pocket for and a lot of people don't have the resources to do that there are plenty of things that Are more affordable But a lot of people just don't know what's available for them and I think a lot of the response around it, yes, sure, diversity, having more black and brown doctors is a key, but also in making sure that [00:28:00] the, I feel like these institutions, especially insurance companies, need to be held responsible for having, making sure that pregnant women have doulas or somebody that is paid for through their insurance that they can bounce ideas off of.
And Just empowering people to know that they can't speak up again. I want to share my story on what happened to me with my last baby. I was 41, I'm pregnant and, have a history of preterm labor. And so because of my age and because of my history have to be seen by a neonatologist. And my neonatologist is about an hour and a half from my house hour without traffic, hour and a half, regularly.
And it was one visit, like in order to coordinate everything in my life, I had to bring my kids to the visit. And the doctor straight up refused to see me. He was like, I'm not going to see you. You brought your kids. It's against the policy. I was like, I understand the policy. I work here. But, this is an [00:29:00] exception, obviously, oftentimes exceptions aren't made for people that look like me. So I already had elevated blood pressures at that visit, so it was already established I wasn't even stable, but he was refusing to see me. But because I know my rights, I know policies, I know all those things, he can't turn me away.
I said, so you're going to document on my chart. That me with this blood pressure me with these conditions. You're refusing to see me and he was like you know What if your kid you have to have an ultrasound? What if one of your kids trips over the court or something? I said they're sitting in the chair and they're being still they haven't even made it Pete anyway, and I said, but check this out.
This is what you are going to do You don't have to do the full, scan that you were gonna do that may take an hour But I am here Because I am at risk for having cervical incompetence, which meaning that my cervix will open prematurely and like just physically expel the [00:30:00] baby with the baby.
Nothing being wrong with the baby, just my body just not being able to support a baby. I said, what you're gonna do is you are gonna scan my cervix and you can document that. At least you did that. And he was like, okay, I'm gonna do that. So he scans my service and I'm already looking at the I, I know how to read the ultrasound.
Chelsea Samms: if you're looking seeing that it's shortened. I'm seeing it shortly. And I'm just like, okay, I'm waiting to, I'm waiting for what he's gonna say, right? And he's oh your cervix looks like it's thinning out. You have some debris here that makes it look like you're like already in preterm labor.
Naseema: I was 19 weeks at that time. And he was like, oh, and I'm just like, so he was like you need to be seen. You need to come back. We need to reevaluate if, we're gonna have to sew your cervix up to keep it close. And I was just like, oh, okay. Oh, so there's an issue, right? And so he was just like, yeah.
And [00:31:00] really what he should have done that day was actually do the procedure. So he's just let me wait a week. And I was like, the only reason why I'm not pressing you is because I have another ultrasound tomorrow. And that ultrasound was my cardiac ultrasound. And I was like I'll be back tomorrow if there's anything.
With this ultrasound. But anyway, that ultrasound was fine. I ended up going out of town that week. Everything was pre planned, he knew about it. And they were supposed to follow up with me to make a visit. So I can come back that week. Appointments for neonatologists is hard. They have to make room in their schedule because they're so booked or whatever.
So I end up going to Atlanta. And then coming back and trying to get an appointment and not getting an appointment until the following Tuesday. So I'll call him on Monday, the following Tuesday have a layover in Colorado and find out my plane was canceled and thought I'd have to wait at the airport for 10 hours until my next, so I was just like.
This is a long time to be waiting. Let me just go to the [00:32:00] hospital here in Denver and see what's going on. Lo and behold, before that week was over, like I said, this is, that was on Monday. This was on Sunday. Went to the hospital, only had one centimeter of my cervix left. Had to stay in Denver overnight, get an emergency surprise procedure put in.
So if I had have listened to him and waited until the next week, I would have miscarried at home.
Chelsea Samms: But you only knew all of this and because you are a labor and delivery nurse
Naseema: But even then, like sometimes people wouldn't even speak up or say anything.
Chelsea Samms: Yeah
Naseema: The killer part about it is, I wrote all this up. And I wrote a complaint. So I went to member services, wrote a complaint about what happened because the killer part about it is when I read my note back, it said that he suggested that he do a cervical scan on me. And that's where he found.
So I said, now you're falsifying documentation. So guess [00:33:00] what I'm about to do. You're about to get reported to the board. You're about to lose your license because that's punishable by fine or license loss. So now it's being reviewed by the state of California.
So I'm just saying, but the thing is, is that even me with two master's degrees, being a nurse, being a nurse at the institution, like those doctors are the doctors that I work with. that doctor just didn't know me because he typically doesn't deliver at my hospital, but all his colleagues know me.
I work with all of his colleagues, even with that level of access. That could happen to me. And so, that just gave that as an example. So you can understand that these things slip through the crack and there's so many things and it was just like, it seemed benign, right? Oh, we're not going to see you because you have your kids with you, and there's kids, but meanwhile, there's kids all through that office.[00:34:00]
Chelsea Samms: Right.
Naseema: Okay. Okay. I had let that go
Chelsea Samms: Yeah. After driving an hour and a half there, Getting everybody ready.
Naseema: I'm
Chelsea Samms: wouldn't have went home either. I wouldn't have went home either. Kids or without kids.
If I have to drive an
Naseema: you think I wanted, you think I wanted to
Chelsea Samms: God.
Naseema: these
Chelsea Samms: I did. I'm sorry that happened to you, but I'm so glad that you knew exactly what to do and when to do it because you essentially saved your baby.
Naseema: I mean, I would, I just started to think what would have happened if I, I wasn't able to advocate for myself and so many people aren't so I mean the point of all of this and everything that we're sharing is to just make you aware that you got to be on your P's and Q's like you got to be [00:35:00] on your toes and you have to be willing to advocate for yourself and know what your rights are.
And even if you don't know, always ask if something doesn't sit right with you. Don't stop asking questions or asking for clarification or asking for the help that you need until you feel like you are okay. Like things are okay. Don't stop. You
Chelsea Samms: And I do, I mentioned this when I introduced myself and Was talking about my background, but I do want to mention that I am the founder and owner of a new business called I Know New Warrens. And with that business, I basically am dedicated to lowering the black infant mortality rates for black and brown parents.
I'm hopefully by March, we'll be launching coaching like NICU parent coaching services. And then just newborn. Consultation services, I'm still working out how that's going to look, but as of [00:36:00] right now, I do have eBooks available for sale. And I heard you talking about advocacy and I
do have 1 available.
It's called the NICU parent advocacy script.
Naseema: Mm-Hmm.
Chelsea Samms: tells out exactly what you should say to a
provider when you have concerns about your baby, whether you're in a family meeting, or you're at the bedside during rounds certain buzzwords that will grab the attention of the medical team. And make them stop and really listen to you.
And so I do have that available for purchase. In addition to that, I do have a glossary, a NICU key term glossary, over 300 terms that I came up with and defined in layman's terms for parents to understand the medical jargon that's being thrown around. Cause oftentimes when we're in the NICU as NICU nurses and doctors and labor and delivery, we're talking in that medical code.
Naseema: Mm-Hmm.
Chelsea Samms: Sometimes we're saying it because we know that you don't understand everything we're saying. And let's keep it all the way [00:37:00] above. Sometimes we, let's keep it all the way above. But I think that if more parents, especially black and brown parents, have this kind of tool in their back pocket, it really will aid in the advocacy because they know Oh, I heard you say bradycardia.
My baby's been having bradycardias. When did
that start? What does that mean? What are we doing about it? Why is
that happening?
You know that is also available purchase. I worked really really hard on those two things and then I have some other freebies on there and a bunch of resources that I worked really hard to piece together.
I have a whole resources tab just full of places where you can find legit, credible information. A lot of, there's a whole section on people of color and nonprofit organizations dedicated to black babies and all that jazz is all on my website. I know newborns. com. And so I definitely wanted to just mention that just to serve as a resource, as a hub.
For black and brown parents that are looking for support in that sector, [00:38:00] especially my NICU parents. I obviously any parent, whether you're a repeat parent, a new parent, first time parent, but especially if you're going to have a NICU baby, call me. Yes,
Naseema: And like I said, there's a lot of work to be done systemically, like health care in itself is in shambles, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done systemically to fix these problems.
And until then, the onus is on us. To make sure that we are doing all we can to protect ourselves. And so these resources like Chelsea is sharing are invaluable because we have to arm ourselves, make sure that our, we as mothers or as parents and our, Doing the best that we can for ourselves and for our babies because nobody is going to look out For your baby like you are nobody is going to look out for you like you are but you have to be [00:39:00] Armed with the tools and the resources to be able to really take control of your medical destiny So thank you, Chelsea, for coming on and talking about this.
And so having this discussion because it's so important. I'm not going to stop talking about it because until there's a solution, we have to keep on fighting for our mommies and our babies. And, I'm just super proud of you for the work that you're doing. And I know my listeners will find a lot of value.
Chelsea Samms: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Naseema: Of course.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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