We had been talking for about five minutes when Nicole Berryman’s strength gave way. Her voice began to quiver, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she started telling me about the last few minutes she had spent with her daughter.
“She said, ‘It’s hot. It’s hot. Help me, Mama, I can’t breathe,’” Nicole recalled.
Nicole said the incident happened shortly after Tiara’s nurse gave her a dose of morphine to ease intense chest pains her daughter had been experiencing since delivering a healthy baby boy a few days before. Shortly after receiving the medicine, Tiara struggled to breathe.
“And I’m like, what? What am I supposed to do?” Nicole said she asked as the nurse who administered the medicine had left the room.
Nicole's daughter did not survive the episode. At that time, Tiara had been in the hospital for two to three days. She had returned after being discharged after the delivery of her son because the pains in her chest would not go away. At one point during Tiara’s return, doctors told Nicole stress may have been the cause of her daughter’s distress. But Nicole questioned whether they knew for sure.
“They never conducted tests to know for sure what was causing the pain. They just kept giving her medicine,” Nicole said.
Nicole Berryman stands outside Viola’s House in Dallas, Texas, where she is receiving support in raising her late daughter’s children. Berryman’s 26-year-old daughter, Tiara Jackson, died in November 2024 several days after giving birth to a healthy baby boy.
The mother of four surviving adult daughters is now raising Tiara’s three children ages 7, 3 and 5 months.
Tiara was one of the hundreds of Black women in the U.S. who lost their lives last year due to complications before, during, or shortly after childbirth. Statistics show Black women are dying at 3 times the rate of White women in the U.S. Maternal health advocates and medical professionals say the reasons vary, but include a lack of attention by medical professionals.
Berryman holds the bottle hospital workers gave her containing the EKG graph of her daughter’s last heartbeat.
Tiara’s story is featured in BIN’s public awareness campaign, “Saving Black Moms: A Maternal Health Crisis.” Stay tuned for weekly reports and social media updates to BIN’s campaign starting June 2, through September 29, 2025.
Hear Nicole’s story in this edition of the Black Perspective. Listen HERE or click below!
BIN sends its sincere and heartfelt condolences to the Berryman family and all families who have experienced the loss of a mother during a perinatal period.
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