A Letter to Dr. Janell Green Smith, the Black Maternal Health Advocate Who Lost Her Life in Childbirth
Find her Instagram page, and you can see it clearly. You can see the light and love shining through her.
Dr. Janell Green Smith, 31, loved being a wife, woman of God and childbirth advocate.
Tragically, she died from childbirth complications on Friday after delivering her first child. The South Carolina-based midwife advocated fiercely for Black maternal health.
She spent her career fighting for safe, equitable maternal health. She partnered with the Hive Impact Fund, which supports families during early childhood, and was widely respected for her work in helping to improve birth outcomes.
“That a Black midwife and maternal health expert died after giving birth in the United States is both heartbreaking and unacceptable,” wrote The American College of Nurse-Midwives. The organization recognized the tragedy “as a profound failure of the systems meant to protect birthing people.”
Black women are three times more likely to die from childbirth complications that white women
Dr. Smith dedicated her career to the ongoing crisis that ended up taking her life, too. What a devastating reminder of the realities of Black birth. She used her voice, even after a series of unshakeable tragedies nearly kept her from her calling.
When her father died in 2020, Dr. Smith convinced herself that the pain was too deep to finish school. But she did it. While studying for her board exam for her dream job in 2021, she got the news that her brother was murdered. She didn’t think the grief would allow her to pour into patients. But she did it. The following year, Dr. Smith lost her mother on Mother’s Day — two weeks after she found out her mom had six months to live. She withdrew from her doctorate program.
Somehow, still, she did it.
She earned her Doctor of Nursing and got married in 2024.
Her motto after the storm: Do it anyway.
That’s precisely what Dr. Smith did.
And now, we have to do it for her. Keep her voice lifted. Keep her fight alive. Honor what she lived and died for.
Dear Dr. Janell Green Smith,
I will remember not just how you died, but how you lived. You fought for our safety, our dignity and our right to survive birth. You deserved this, too.
We honor your work. We honor your voice. We honor your fire and bravery.
To slay the giants you’ve slain speaks volumes of your heart and your spirit. I pray that you’ve passed that inner power along to your child.
My heart breaks knowing the Smith family must raise him without you physically here. But you are people of God. He will make a way out of no way. He will restore, repair and bring peace to your loved ones. He will carry your child so that he knows what his mama fought for. It shatters me that you can’t meet him, but I hope you have comfort knowing you will meet him one day long from here.
You chose a God-fearing spouse who knows the power of the Spirit, and may your family be blessed by your choice.
I know you’re dwelling in the house of the Most High. Although you left this world tragically, I pray you received the most majestic entrance into the kingdom for your work in this life. You followed your calling and spread the Good News, even in the face of the impossible.
Thank you for making a difference for mothers, for leaving something behind that will last forever: a legacy.
Your are a giant slayer. An Earth shaker. Rest in glory, power and light, Janelle. May we always carry your name with reverence.
With my whole heart,
Jessika
A fellow mom and believer