I was originally gifted this small little plant that fit inside, like,
the palm of my hand.
I was gifted it after I lost my first daughter.
And from there, as you can see around the room,
it's sprouted so many other little plants.
I can share that with other people. So it's like a piece of her never dies.
This one always makes me sad. These were her footprints.
And here's the blanket
that we wrapped her in.
I always knew I wanted to be a mom. The first time I found out I was pregnant,
it was the 4th of July.
One day I was home. I took a shower and I had dried myself off.
And I noticed that there was like a trickle of water. And after that,
I continued to dry myself off. And then there was just a gush of water.
And I went to labor and delivery.
And I found out that I had lost my amniotic fluid and they
basically told me I had two options. I could either
continue on with the pregnancy, or I would have to have an abortion.
And I decided to continue on, and less than a week later,
my daughter arrived. And she died during birth.
I feel like my experience on the labor and delivery floor was amazing.
But once they kind of realized that my baby was going to come and that
she was going to die, I felt like they treated me differently.
I also had a nurse and I kind of said to her, like, "What's going to happen when
it's time for me to have my baby?" And she was like, "Oh,
your baby's going to die.
You're going to deliver your baby by yourself." I still was like in shock.
I didn't really know what was going on.
I had not called my family or anything because everything was happening so fast.
And I wasn't even making my own decisions.
In 2020, about one out of 10 infants in the U.S. were born preterm,
or before 37 weeks of pregnancy have been completed,
which leads to higher rates of death and disability.
I heard the statistics about, you know, infant mortality, but, like,
to live it is like a totally different experience.
The data doesn't show you dealing with people who are cold
and not compassionate in regards to your loss.
The data doesn't show you literally falling apart
after having to leave the hospital with something that was supposed to be an
amazing moment and no one to show you how to navigate or how to
move forward.
I just couldn't find happiness. I was having trouble sleeping.
I was having, like, really bad anxiety.
I don't think it was simply just the loss.
The experience was so traumatic that it just really put me in a dark
place.
In the United States, unfortunately,
we have been in the midst of a maternal health crisis.
Our statistics have been shameful when we think about the number of
pregnant people who die in the postpartum period.
When we think about the numbers that we have in terms of infant mortality,
some of the states in the United States have health outcomes that approximate
countries who are low income.
Monica McLemore is a nurse-scientist who conducts community-centered research on
reproductive health.
We worship mothers in the United States.
We push people into motherhood. I mean, that's what the whole, you know,
abortion debate is about, "Oh,
this is the most sacred thing you can do on this planet." And yet we treat you
as if you're expendable. You know, if you have a miscarriage in our country,
you're not eligible for maternity leave.
They just expect you to lose your baby and go back to work.
Something that often gets lost in the abortion conversation is the physical and
emotional trauma of pregnancy in the United States due to unsupportive systems
that can leave many pregnant people feeling alone. We don't talk for example,
about the physical trauma of pregnancy. Morning sickness, fatigue,
and a weakened immune system. Vaginal and anal tearing, leaking, cramping,
bleeding, nipple pain, and postpartum depression.
People who give birth vaginally risk pelvic organ prolapse,
which is when the vaginal walls and/or uterus drop toward the vaginal opening.
One in five who develop this condition end up needing surgery to correct it
later in life. All of that is normal.
Then there are the 50,000 near misses of death from pregnancy that happen every
year in the U.S., from bleeding, heart attack, shock, kidney failure,
or infection in the uterus. Near misses are preventable,
but hindered by a lack of research in the U.S. They're actually increasing
year-by-year,
and they're higher in Southern states and for black and indigenous individuals.
This is true for preterm birth as well and comes down to a mix of social and
economic factors, including housing, transportation, food security,
health coverage, quality of care, and chronic stress.
When we talk about pregnancy, people,
it's like a shortcut or a heuristic where people are like, "Oh, pregnancy,
birth. You're going to be a mom." It's more complicated than that.
I kept hearing all these stories about how people felt judged and they felt
stigma and shame and judgment and blame.
And that's when I realized a lot of people misperceive pregnant capable people
as like vessels.
Like their only job on this planet is to grow another human and birth them
safely. And if anything goes wrong, it's their fault. Right?
As opposed to us as a society really thinking about how are we making this
impossible for people to do this in a safe and healthy manner.
After enduring not one but two pregnancy losses,
Foster gave birth to a healthy baby last year. In the process, however,
she developed severe postpartum preeclampsia,
a serious condition that is not only life threatening,
but can also increase the risk for heart disease later in life.
Shortly after delivering my son, I just was not feeling right.
My legs had swelled up really, really bad. So I had kind of said to them, like,
"I don't think something's right with like my legs.
I'm also not really feeling like, okay." And they kind of was like, "Oh,
you're fine. You just had a baby, that's normal." So I said,
"Okay." I left the hospital on the Wednesday. I wanna say Saturday:
horrible- like I was going down. I just was not well,
I had a really bad pounding headache. Just something said to me, I was like,
"If we don't leave here, like, now,
an ambulance is going to drag me out of here." I want to say a couple hours
after being in the emergency room,
they realized that something was not right with me.
And they were running a bunch of tests.
I had to be medically transferred to a facility that could better take care of
me. At this point,
we realized that I had about 33 pounds of fluid that was backing up into my
lungs. It was just really, really scary.
After the last time I was admitted in the hospital,
I had asked to speak to the director of the OB GYN floor that I had
originally left. And one of the things he said was as a black woman,
every time you show up in a medical facility,
you have to be scared out of your mind. He said,
because somehow we miss something. He said, um,
you left the hospital with some of the same complaints after having your son
that you've continued to present with.
And we somehow missed that and we dropped the ball. And for that, like,
I apologize to you.
So for me,
it's this bigger discussion of "Let's stop blaming individuals and let's start
fixing structures." I always like to give the people that I
work with some piece to remember me and the work that we do,
so that they know that they're part of a bigger community and part of a bigger
movement that really believes in reproductive justice.
Reproductive justice was developed by 12 Black women in Chicago in 1994.
And it is a theory, a strategy,
a praxis that really posits the fact that people have a human
right to be able to become pregnant,
to birth and to have all the supports that they need in order to be able to do
that with dignity.
The second tenant is that they have the right to prevent and/or end
pregnancies with dignity and a human right to be able to do that with all the
supports that they need- that people have a human right to parent the children
they already have in safe environments,
in safe communities with freedom from violence from any individual or from
any government or any state.
You know,
the reason that reproductive health rights and justice is part of my life's work
is because I was born a preemie in 1969.
And it makes me really angry that our ability to improve
preterm birth or babies coming too soon is no better than it was when I was born
52 years ago.
Let's go find some people who had preemies and let's talk to them about what
research questions did they have when they were going through it.
In 2015, this became the California Preterm Birth Initiative.
Across multiple focus groups,
McLemore and her team generated hundreds of unique researchable questions
that are now available online for funders, policy makers, other researchers,
and clinicians.
And what we found was housing, stable housing,
basic minimum income, having access to doulas and other birth workers,
midwives, having team-based care,
having community services in the community,
having a buddy system, like there were all these things that I, as a researcher,
would've never realized were so important to be measuring,
to be thinking about improving health outcomes.
Guys, there's no need to be jealous. There's enough love for everybody.
The research gaps, in my opinion,
that need to be filled is the personal stories. There's a difference between,
okay,
23,000 babies die a year from stillbirth versus having
a mom sit in front of you and share her experience.
If this is not only happening to me, this has to be happening to other people.
So I started a virtual support group for women and families who
suffered pregnancy and infant loss.
We share tips to empower families,
and we kind of give them a little bit of homework.
So they're not just leaving feeling hopeless, but they're leaving with like,
"Okay, this can possibly help me, you know,
empower myself." And in a sense,
I kind of helped teach myself how to continue to navigate the system.
And that's how I have King. You know,
after the rain and the storm, there's always a rainbow.
In 2021,
McLemore and Foster were part of a team that published a paper on pregnancy and
mental health. In it,
they argue for policy changes that would enable care models that treat the whole
person, such as those that involve midwives, doulas,
and community based organizations.
A lot of the work that midwives do and their model of care,
it is really grounded in understanding that the mental health concerns of
pregnant capable people are addressed. And one way they do that,
they provide care in groups.
They actually function from this fundamental belief that pregnant people can
learn from each other.
Another initiative at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is
bringing together patients, providers,
and researchers with the goal of changing the way the U.S. treats new mothers.
I think what's worse than being invisible is being,
you know, seen and neglected.
I was interviewing a mom and she said that, you know,
bad postpartum care is like a rip current
pulling you out with waves repeatedly crashing on you.
And that's how people drown.
One mom shared how she's been experiencing some pain with
breastfeeding. And that was kind of difficult to manage.
And she says, "I don't know why, but he's happy. So that's good.
And then I'll figure out my stuff somehow." And
I've lived this, like, "If she's okay,
then I'm okay." But that is not true.
Kristen Tully's team is working with 12 clinics in North Carolina to test
postpartum tools and processes that improve care for birthing parents,
such as one-pagers that detail what's normal and what's not.
"Am I okay?" Like, "Is this bleeding to be expected?
Is my headache because I'm so tired or is this maybe postpartum
preeclampsia?" Like,
these are life and death things.
And you know, mental health is a leading cause of mortality too.
When we don't actively support-you know,
when people are left on their own, then, you
know, we're saying that-that you don't matter, that it doesn't matter,
that you should be able to handle it. And that's inhumane.
You kind of see all the things that your mom kind of like sacrificed for you,
being a mom. Like, it's a lot of work. Breastfeeding is sometimes,
it's so draining. I'm so tired after I breastfeed. And it's like,
I need to work on giving myself more grace.
Sometimes things are getting overwhelming and you can easily kind of,
kind of go back into that like dark space,
especially because you're parenting a child,
but you'll never get a chance to parent the child that you lost.
And sometimes that can be kind of like a double-edged sword.
You're grateful that you have this baby,
but it also makes you sad of what could have been.
And if I can help another family again,
prevent them from suffering a similar loss, then this would be worth it.