Eve, the rapper and former panelist on CBS’s “The Talk,” shared some seriously exciting news on her Instagram page recently. The 42-year-old revealed that she and her husband, Maximillion Cooper, are expecting a baby in February 2022.
“Can you believe it @mrgumball3000 we finally get to tell everyone!!!!!” the entertainer posted on Instagram this week, mentioning Cooper by his username. “You all know how long [we’ve] been waiting for this blessing!!!”
Eve has openly discussed her struggles with fertility in the past, including her history of fibroids, which are non-cancerous tumors that grow on the uterus during a woman’s childbearing years. On a 2020 episode of “The Talk,” Eve talked about how her doctors wanted to remove her fibroids in order to increase her chances of getting pregnant.
“I used to have these horrible periods,” Eve said in the segment. “And I’m only saying this to say, there’s a lot of women out there that think [that], we were told that periods are supposed to be painful. They’re not. Go to your doctor, and if they don’t believe you, go to another doctor.”
Eve underwent a myomectomy, a procedure that removes fibroids without harming reproductive potential. The surgery seems to have been a great success, as evidenced by her recent news.
By sharing her struggles with fibroids, Eve has helped to bring attention to this common menstrual condition that seems to disproportionately affect Black women.
“Studies show that African-American women suffer fibroids two to three times more than white women,” says Dr. Monica Ploetzke, McLeod OB-GYN, on the McLeod Health website. “We also know that Black women tend to experience fibroids at a younger age and often more severely than their white counterparts.”
Unfortunately, there continues to be great racial disparity in the American healthcare system, and this impacts the care and treatment options that Black women specifically have ready access to.
“Despite minimally invasive options, Black women continue to dominate the percentages of women having hysterectomies for benign disease. We need to understand why,” says Dr. Erica Marsh, chief of the division of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Michigan’s Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital.
Cases like Eve’s show a hysterectomy should not necessarily be considered a first-line defense when it comes to women and fibroids, particularly Black women and fibroids, as reproduction is still possible using other methods. Here is hoping that Eve’s story helps educate and empower more women to advocate for themselves in the doctor’s office.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
