Maternal Mortality: “We Shouldn't Be Dying in Birth Anymore”

glamour.com:

In Conversation with and According to data from the World Health Organization, the U.S. has the highest of all industrialized nations, and the CDC reports that Black women are more likely to die during and after childbirth than white women.

These sobering statistics inspired journalist and broadcaster Elaine Welteroth to explore—and ultimately choose— for the delivery of her son in February 2023.After what she describes as a “life-changing” experience, Welteroth set out to raise awareness about the urgent need to create more access to midwifery care—which the CDC says could reduce 80% of maternal mortality in the US—and advocate for policy change.

She also, in December 2023, launched a birthday fundraiser to sponsor one woman’s perinatal and midwifery birth support. The response was so huge, the one-off fundraiser became birthFUND—launched to help provide midwifery care and support for families across the country.Here, she and fellow birthFUND advocate and CNN anchor talk candidly about their own labors and their ambitious goals to improve childbirth outcomes.Abby Phillip: So, tell me more about where this idea came from and what made you feel like it had to be done?Elaine Welteroth: One of my goals with birthFUND is to help change the culture of birth in this country, to help raise the standard of care, and to raise a sense of consciousness around how much better it would be for the whole family unit if midwifery care was integrated into our modern medical ecosystem.It all started with my own experience of navigating a very broken maternal healthcare system.

It's like this open secret. We know about it, but nobody wants to look at or talk about it. Everyone's waiting for someone else to fix it.