If You Don’t Know: Losing Your Wife and Son Ft. Global Boga

If You Don't Know is a Radio 1xtra podcast hosted by De-Graft Mensah. Updated weekly, De-Graft explores black voices and stories.

The current episode Losing your wife and son ft. Global Boga tells the story of the sad death of Nicole Thea and her unborn son Reign, through the perspective of her husband Global Boga.

The inquest into her death discovered that Nicole had a condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), which is when the heart muscle becomes thickened and stiff, making it difficult for the heart to pump blood around the body. Her death was caused by a sudden cardiac arrest due to this condition. The inquest concluded that whilst there was a delay in the ambulance response to Nicole's collapse, a quicker response time would not have changed the outcome.

However, Nicole's family feel that the local NHS Trust should take more responsibility for her death. Nicole's family say that she had complained to her midwife that she was short of breath (she actually recorded a YouTube video about her symptoms), but these details were not recorded in her maternity records and these concerns were dismissed as being a 'normal part of pregnancy'. Nicole's mother and husband feel that racial discrimination played a part in this dismissal and minimising of her symptoms.

Nicole's husband Global Boga is now working hard to raise awareness of HCM and to reduce discrimination against pregnant women of colour, as well as working to improve maternal healthcare in Ghana where he now lives.

Earlier this year, MBBRACE (a group that investigates and reports on maternal morbidity and mortality in the UK) reported that black women are 4 times more likely to die while pregnant or just after childbirth than white women. We don't fully understand why this is, but is likely due to a complex combination of factors, including prejudice, racism and discrimination, as well as social determinants of health and physiological risk factors.

You can read more about why black women are more likely to die and what can be done about it here: Black women are at greater risk of maternal death in the UK – here’s what needs to be done