A black pregnant woman in a medical manual, it's still so rare that it's going around the world

A medical scheme showing a pregnant woman with black skin and her fetus has become viral in just a few days.Because representation is important.

December 21, 2021

You may have seen a medical illustration passing on social networks showing, in a slice, a pregnant woman and her fetus.His particuliarity ?The mother has black skin, and the child to be born too.

A Nigerian medical student illustrates black people

On each social network where this illustration is posted, the reactions are intense.Doctors ask to buy it to display it in their offices, others exclaim "to see this image has done good to my soul" or "thanks to this kind of images, I may well want toStarting medical studies ».

For most thousands of people who have commented on this scheme that has become viral, the observation is the same: this is the first time that they have seen a black pregnant woman on medical imaging.

Behind this illustration, there is the work of a Nigerian medical student named Chidiebere Ibe.At 25, he explains to NBC that he learned to illustrate medical patterns on his own, in self -taught.A hobby that does not come from chance, but from an observed imbalance: the lack of representation of black bodies in contemporary medical illustrations.

And if the inclusiveness of learning supports is such an issue in the medical world, it is not only because the representation counts.It is also because, in some cases (especially in dermatology), not to see the way in which a pathology presents itself on black skin can lead to a bad diagnosis or a delay in care, and put the life of patientsin danger.

Thus, in the United States, statistics indicate a survival rate after 5 years in skin cancer (melanoma) at 92% for white people, and 67% for black people.

On the occasion of an article for Slate, the Mame-Fatou Niang lecturer reminds us:

The craze for the work of Chidiebere Ibe is therefore up to what he offers: a medical representation of black bodies which is neither alterizing nor absent.In the Anglo-Saxon world, this practice even begins to spread.

Miguel Shema resumes:

As the student says in conclusion very well: "The medical world being part of the social body, it is not excluded from the chains of thoughts that compose it".And that's why when Chidiebere Ibe allows us to see a black pregnant woman on a medical scheme for the first time in our life, it is an event far from being trivial.

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