Maternal Health and Emergency Care
The ethnicity pain gap is well-documented in maternity services.
Research indicates Black women are almost twice as likely to have their births investigated for safety failings and three times more likely to die during childbirth compared to White women.
An interim report by the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation detailed cultural stereotyping.
Asian women were sometimes characterized as "princesses" who could not cope with pain, while Black women were stereotyped as having "tough skin" capable of tolerating high pain levels.
During a family evidence panel, one woman stated: "I feel like, for us black ladies, they feel like we can handle the pain, even when we are complaining we are in pain."
Other respondents described being stereotyped as aggressive, negatively impacting their care.
A 2025 survey by FiveXMore found that 23% of Black women did not receive requested pain relief during childbirth, with 40% receiving no explanation for the refusal.
One participant shared: "I asked for pain relief but was told they had no gas and air on my ward despite me seeing others have it.
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They gave me a paracetamol and told me I wasn't in labour. My baby was born 10 minutes later."
The survey concluded that when Black women did not vocalize distress loudly, healthcare professionals assumed they were managing, driven by stereotypes about natural resilience.
In emergency care, a 2016 Boston University study published in Plos One analyzed over 60 million pain-related emergency department visits from 2007 to 2011.
