Illustration of Black fetus has Canadian parents, educators calling for diversity in medical resources

Syrus Marcus Ware, an assistant professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, was "immediately struck" by an image shared several days ago by his cousin in California.

The illustration of a pregnant Black woman, showing a Black fetus inside her belly, was created by Nigerian medical student and Illustrator Chidiebere Ibe.

"I realized that I had never seen anything like it," Ware told CBC Hamilton. 

Ware — a trans man who carried his now-10-year-old daughter Amélie — said he has "read countless pregnancy books, including very progressive ones," but had never seen that kind of representation, aside from a drawing of his own he once made.

"I had literally never seen a Black baby drawn in a uterus ... I realized that I hadn't even noticed that was the case until the evidence was right in front of me. 

"It's so interesting how normalized it is that we are so used to only ever seeing white babies that we don't even notice, and so it's so striking to see this Black baby drawing this way," Ware added.

Ware, who teaches with McMaster's school of the arts, said he and many others have shared Ibe's illustration.

"The medical illustrator went from having about 2,000 followers to now having [more than 100,000] followers just over the weekend." 

Ware wanted to share the illustration to say, 'Look, we can do better — this is what it looks like to make change in the medical industrial complex.'

"This young medical illustrator who's training to be a neurosurgeon is doing just that. He's interrupting the process of white supremacy and instead saying, in fact, I want to imagine Black babies being born in this world, so I'm going to draw them ... It really shows the importance of representation and supporting those medical illustrators who can actually tell our stories as part of their medical work." 

Ibe said he started creating medical illustrations last July.

"The responses are quite amazing, because first of all I never expected the drawing to go that viral," he told CBC News via phone from Nigeria. 

"I spend a lot of time to go through the comments on the post and it's amazing. I feel so overwhelmed right now by people's comments, and I'm glad that people are blessed by the work and people feel that it's time to make great change," said Ibe, who has just been admitted to Kyiv Medical School. 

Liz Darling, assistant dean of midwifery at McMaster and an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology, described Ibe's work as "a beautiful illustration."