Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Couric, and welcome to Next Question Today,
Speaker 1: part two of our look at America's maternal mortality crisis.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to Part one, I highly recommend
Speaker 1: you start there. In it, we heard the devastating story
Speaker 1: of how one mother, Kira Johnson, became a part of
Speaker 1: a shameful statistic that between seven hundred and nine hundred
Speaker 1: American women die every year from pregnancy and childbirth related causes,
Speaker 1: and six of those deaths, including Kira's, could have been prevented.
Speaker 1: Here's Kira's husband, Charles Johnson. What happened to Kira was
Speaker 1: not just a medical tragedy with a medical catastrophe. Everything
Speaker 1: that could have went wrong, in fact did so. Not
Speaker 1: only did that doctor failed Kira, but the hospital, in
Speaker 1: their policies and procedures, failed her. We learned that structural
Speaker 1: issues like racism and sexism, as well as an increase
Speaker 1: in medical interventions during labor, have led to more women
Speaker 1: dying from pregnancy and childbirth today than they did thirty
Speaker 1: years ago, a fact that makes the US the only
Speaker 1: country in the developed world to see its maternal mortality
Speaker 1: rate go up today. In Part two, we tackle my
Speaker 1: next question, what is being done to better protect American
Speaker 1: mothers from becoming a part of that horrifying statistic. She
Speaker 1: was told it was a fluke, And here I was
Speaker 1: looking at these data points and saying she wasn't a fluke.
Speaker 1: She was actually part of a really important trend that
Speaker 1: has not been covered in the US. For investigative reporter
Speaker 1: Nina Martin, this question is a personal one. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen, when she and her team at Pro
Speaker 1: Publica began reporting their Lost Mother's Project, an investigation into
Speaker 1: maternal mortality, they found an alarming statistic that, in addition
Speaker 1: to the deaths, there are fifty thousand women who nearly
Speaker 1: die every year from pregnancy and childbirth related issues. And
Speaker 1: we're not talking about like they have gestational diabetes and
Speaker 1: then they cut back on you know whatever, um, the
Speaker 1: the amount of sugar, the ice cream that they ate
Speaker 1: in pregnancy and then everything is okay. We're talking about
Speaker 1: women who, you know, go to the hospital and go
Speaker 1: into cardiac arrest. We're talking about women who nearly bleed out.
Speaker 1: We're talking about women who have life threatening um infections
Speaker 1: that keep them hospitalized for weeks. And UM, that was
Speaker 1: really super interesting to me both because of the size
Speaker 1: um again, which really was not what people were talking
Speaker 1: about in the parenting magazine world that I had spent
Speaker 1: some time in. But it also really connected with me
Speaker 1: on a personal level because my sister had um given birth.
Speaker 1: I've I've three sisters, three yeah, and um the oldest
Speaker 1: of five. Nina Martin's sister Meal had given birth to
Speaker 1: a boy named Aiden in Texas in two thousand. She
Speaker 1: and her husband both had good jobs. She was a paralegal,
Speaker 1: he was a lawyer, and they had access to good
Speaker 1: health care. She was very healthy, had a really good pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and she nearly died after in her postpartum period she
Speaker 1: had to very severe infections, one of which was they've
Speaker 1: caught and fixed in the hospital, and the second one
Speaker 1: which nearly killed her. And I remember going and trying
Speaker 1: to help out at the time and how freaked out
Speaker 1: everybody was, and then it was kind of over. People
Speaker 1: said to her, you know, oh, well, you know this
Speaker 1: never happened to anybody. We have no idea that we've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like this before. And and also, um,
Speaker 1: don't worry, you're a little head about it, because you're
Speaker 1: fine now and your baby's fine, and go home and
Speaker 1: live your life and be happy that everything's okay. And
Speaker 1: so her experience was completely erased. Being a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: I just thought that will never happen to me. Olympic
Speaker 1: runner Alison Felix became one of the fifty thousand women
Speaker 1: who nearly died from pregnancy related complications in two thousand eighteen.
Speaker 1: During her pregnancy, she was diagnosed with severe preclampsia, a
Speaker 1: condition characterized by high blood pressure that puts mothers at
Speaker 1: risk for stroke, among other things. The only cure for
Speaker 1: severe cases like Allison's is to get the baby out.
Speaker 1: So it just thirty two weeks she had to deliver
Speaker 1: her daughter, Cameron, via emergency c section. It happened so
Speaker 1: fast she didn't even realize how much danger she was
Speaker 1: in during and after the birth. My family was definitely
Speaker 1: very concerned, and I think that they were even more
Speaker 1: concerned than I was, because obviously all of my attention
Speaker 1: was on Cameron, and I was consumed with how she
Speaker 1: was doing and all of that. Um But I was
Speaker 1: still having issues with my blood pressure and we were
Speaker 1: still trying to get that to be at a manageable level,
Speaker 1: and so I was still in the hospital for several days.
Speaker 1: After both Cameron and I were together, UM and uh
Speaker 1: for several weeks. I was still trying to regulate my
Speaker 1: own blood pressure. Today, both Alison and Cameron are happy
Speaker 1: and healthy, but the six time Olympic gold medalists is
Speaker 1: determined to not let her experience be erased. In May
Speaker 1: of two thousand nineteen, she testified at a House Ways
Speaker 1: and Means committee hearing about racial disparities in the maternal
Speaker 1: mortality crisis. First, let me welcome this Alison Felix, United
Speaker 1: States Track and Field star, nine time Olympic medalists, going
Speaker 1: through this experience, UM, and just feeling so scared as
Speaker 1: I went through it all. That was really the turning
Speaker 1: point from me and talking to girl friends and UM,
Speaker 1: just feeling like my friends are not even educated, you know,
Speaker 1: on this topic. It really pushed me to share my story.
Speaker 1: I'm a person who is, you know, more private, and
Speaker 1: so it was definitely something that was out of my
Speaker 1: comfort zone. My name is Alison Felix, and I am
Speaker 1: Cameron's mom, and I would like to share the story
Speaker 1: of the two most terrifying days of my life. What's
Speaker 1: scary about Allison's story is that she didn't realize anything
Speaker 1: was wrong until everything went very wrong. I had a
Speaker 1: really great pregnancy. I was I knew I wanted to
Speaker 1: come back to compete, so I was training. I was
Speaker 1: pretty much training four or five days a week. I
Speaker 1: was on the track, um, in the gym, in the pool,
Speaker 1: so you know, really intentional with the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: I was going to resume right back onto the track.
Speaker 1: And at thirty two weeks, I went into the doctor
Speaker 1: and I was just going for my routine checkup and
Speaker 1: so went in and immediately when I came in, I
Speaker 1: found out that I was spelling protein. And from there,
Speaker 1: my doctor sent me straight to the hospital or further monitoring,
Speaker 1: and um, it was not going well what they were seeing,
Speaker 1: and so I was admitted right away and I spent
Speaker 1: that night in the hospital. And that's when things really
Speaker 1: started to go downhill. You know, I was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: a severe case of pre clampsia, and um my blood
Speaker 1: pressure was through the roof, and you know, the baby
Speaker 1: was not doing well, and things happened just so quickly,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to wrap my head around what
Speaker 1: was happening and trying to understand what was happening, and UM,
Speaker 1: from there after that evening the next day, it continued
Speaker 1: to get worse, and UM, we realized that it was
Speaker 1: an emergency situation and that the only way out of
Speaker 1: it was to have an emergency c section and to deliver.
Speaker 1: So it was terrifying, you know, it was so far
Speaker 1: from what my birth plan was and UM, just trying
Speaker 1: to understand, you know, what was really going on camera.
Speaker 1: Just three pounds seven ounces when she was born and
Speaker 1: was taken to the Nick you right away, where she
Speaker 1: would stay for a month. But in addition to worrying
Speaker 1: about her PREMI day in and day out, Allison also
Speaker 1: had to heal from her own trauma. It was honestly
Speaker 1: very difficult. UM, all of my energy and all of
Speaker 1: my focus was really trying to be in the Nick
Speaker 1: seven and I was so concerned with everything that was
Speaker 1: happening with Cameron that UM, I felt very low on
Speaker 1: that list. UM. If it wasn't for my support system,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know what if I would have
Speaker 1: taken so much care for myself. But my family really
Speaker 1: stepped up and UM, you know, made sure that I was,
Speaker 1: you know, going to doctor's appointments, making sure that I
Speaker 1: was taking my medication UM because I was still dealing
Speaker 1: with the blood pressure even well after I was released
Speaker 1: from the hospital. So having um other people helped me
Speaker 1: was um enormous Because as I was spending you know,
Speaker 1: night and day in the nick, you you could see
Speaker 1: how someone without means, without a support system, without good
Speaker 1: doctors or attentive doctors, could really fall through the cracks,
Speaker 1: can't you so easily? I mean, and I didn't deal
Speaker 1: with any postpartum depression, but I just kept thinking, Wow,
Speaker 1: if that had kicked in as well, UM, how could
Speaker 1: this have been manageable. It's just so much that it
Speaker 1: can feel overwhelming, and so my heart goes out to
Speaker 1: those two women who have to, you know, deal with
Speaker 1: these extra things on top of having a newborn in
Speaker 1: so many changes within your body. One of the biggest
Speaker 1: reasons Alison has turned to advocacy is she wants to
Speaker 1: get the message out her story can be anyone's story. Frankly,
Speaker 1: it's something she wished she had known leading up. I
Speaker 1: think that I was not UM prepared enough. You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't told what to look out for. I wasn't
Speaker 1: told that I was at risk UM, and so That's
Speaker 1: something that I wish had gone differently. You know. I
Speaker 1: think had I known beforehand what to look out for, um,
Speaker 1: just that I was at risk, then I could have
Speaker 1: wrapped my head more around, you know, a possible stay
Speaker 1: in the Nike You and what that means and kind
Speaker 1: of all of these things. But it was it was
Speaker 1: terrifying to have to go through this ordeal and straight
Speaker 1: into you know, I was still dealing with the symptoms
Speaker 1: UM and the after effects of what I had been through,
Speaker 1: and straight into now my daughters in the nick You
Speaker 1: and what does life there look like? And I'm trying
Speaker 1: to manage all of that as well. And when you
Speaker 1: say you were at risk, what made you at risk
Speaker 1: for this? Just being a black woman? That made me
Speaker 1: at risk? And that is something that I didn't understand before.
Speaker 1: You know, I had heard. But I know, I'm a
Speaker 1: professional athlete, you know, I trained for a living, I'm healthy,
Speaker 1: I know how to eat right. I exercised throughout my ignancy,
Speaker 1: and I was um wanting to have this beautiful natural birth,
Speaker 1: and so I just didn't think it would be me,
Speaker 1: you know, And that is just such a misconception that um,
Speaker 1: that I want to bring awareness to that women of
Speaker 1: color are at risk. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research,
Speaker 1: black women are at least fifty more likely to experience
Speaker 1: preclampsia than white women. The effects are also more severe
Speaker 1: and present earlier than in other races. Did your doctor
Speaker 1: ever even mentioned the term preclampsia? I don't recall, you know,
Speaker 1: having that conversation, and so that's pretty scary looking back,
Speaker 1: you know, I would have loved to know, you know,
Speaker 1: these are the symptoms. These are things that you really
Speaker 1: should pay attention to UM and just be on the
Speaker 1: lookout for. Well, tell us what those are, because I
Speaker 1: feel like people listening can learn from your experience. So
Speaker 1: what are some of the symptoms swelling? Swelling is definitely
Speaker 1: one of the big ones. But I think what makes
Speaker 1: it also scary is that sometimes you don't have any symptoms,
Speaker 1: and so I really feel like I fell into that category.
Speaker 1: I mean, the swelling was one thing, but other than that,
Speaker 1: I felt really good, and so that is really scary.
Speaker 1: But UM headaches can be a symptom along you know,
Speaker 1: the swelling. UM also rapid weight gain, UM, vomiting. So
Speaker 1: there are some things to be on the lookout for,
Speaker 1: but really more than anything consistent, your consistent healthcare. Because
Speaker 1: once you go in to have your appointment and you
Speaker 1: see that you're spelling protein, that is an indicator, um,
Speaker 1: right there, that something is not right. Spelling protein means
Speaker 1: protein in your urine, so there's successive amounts of it
Speaker 1: and your urine. It's interesting, do they understand why Black
Speaker 1: women are at higher risk other than just the sheer
Speaker 1: no bursts of women who experienced preclampsia. Yes, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm far from an expert on this, but from my understanding,
Speaker 1: that is what we need more research to be done,
Speaker 1: um and to be able to understand because some of
Speaker 1: the contributing factors that we know about, you know, not
Speaker 1: having as high of healthcare, we're seeing this happen in
Speaker 1: really privileged black women. Beyonce reveals for the first time
Speaker 1: the harrowing emergency she had while pregnant with twins in
Speaker 1: two thousand seventeen. Beyonce also suffered preclampsia during her pregnancy
Speaker 1: and had to deliver her twins via emergency C section.
Speaker 1: Tenn's great Serena Williams with baby Alexis Olympia shares her
Speaker 1: harrowing ordeal for Serena Williams, it was something else Entirely
Speaker 1: after giving birth via emergency C section, Serena had to
Speaker 1: beg staff to take her pain and her understanding of
Speaker 1: her own body seriously. She nearly died first of a
Speaker 1: blood clot and then a hemorrhage. If Serena Williams struggles
Speaker 1: to be heard, it's clear this isn't just a matter
Speaker 1: of access to good care. I think a big factor
Speaker 1: in it, as well as having to advocate for your
Speaker 1: own for yourself UM. For some reason, either the tolerance
Speaker 1: of pain or black women's pain in general is not believed,
Speaker 1: and that is something that has to change. Do you
Speaker 1: think racism played a role in your your experience looking back,
Speaker 1: I it's really hard to pinpoint, but I think that
Speaker 1: there might have been some of that implicit uh bye
Speaker 1: is going on in my UM doctor's appointments previously. Really
Speaker 1: why you know, do you think that that the doctor
Speaker 1: whoever your doctor was, was educating, say, a white patient.
Speaker 1: More about this, I think when when I look back,
Speaker 1: I guess it definitely wasn't outright, that was not my
Speaker 1: situation at all. But the fact that I that this
Speaker 1: wasn't a conversation that I wasn't discussed, especially as you said,
Speaker 1: since you were at greater risk. Yes, I feel like
Speaker 1: every woman of color you know immediately that you should
Speaker 1: be sat down and explained that you know, this is
Speaker 1: something you're at risk for. Do you think had you
Speaker 1: not had the resources that you have, had you not
Speaker 1: been an Olympic athlete, had you not been able to
Speaker 1: get the best medical care possible, that there's a chance
Speaker 1: that you might not be here. I think it's a
Speaker 1: possibility for sure. And that is what really is scary
Speaker 1: to me. And that's what really wanted me to open
Speaker 1: up and to share my experience in my story, because
Speaker 1: I felt like, you know, I had the best of
Speaker 1: the best, you know, and I still ended up in
Speaker 1: a situation that was really scary and that we weren't
Speaker 1: sure about. And if I'm experiencing this, someone who might
Speaker 1: not have the best of health care, or might not
Speaker 1: have even been heard to the level that I was,
Speaker 1: might not have made it. When we come back how
Speaker 1: some states are managing to turn their maternal mortality rates around.
Speaker 1: In Part one, we met Deborah Bingham, a registered nurse
Speaker 1: with a doctorate in public health who spent her career
Speaker 1: focusing on improving the health of moms and babies. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, as the founding executive director of
Speaker 1: California's first Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, Deborah learned that California's
Speaker 1: maternal mortality rate had actually been going up. We then
Speaker 1: sought permission to talk about this in small groups. As
Speaker 1: we went around organizing the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative,
Speaker 1: I would hear gaps in the room from the clinicians
Speaker 1: in that space, so that would be physicians, registered nurses,
Speaker 1: and midwives who were running hospitals leading uh and also
Speaker 1: public health leaders literally gasping at this was brandon news.
Speaker 1: Nobody had expected this. We did not think that it
Speaker 1: would be on our watch that we would see this rise.
Speaker 1: Deborah and her committee of experts reviewed three years of
Speaker 1: maternal deaths that occurred in the state, and one of
Speaker 1: the things they found was that death by hemorrhage could
Speaker 1: often be prevented. We found that there was quite a
Speaker 1: bit of denial and delay had led to these deaths,
Speaker 1: meaning that women were not um the severity of the
Speaker 1: hemorrhage was not recognized early enough. They We're not getting
Speaker 1: blood early enough, which is life saving. Obviously and um
Speaker 1: and so a lot of our efforts became around how
Speaker 1: to eliminate this denial and delay, how to better recognize hemorrhages,
Speaker 1: how to better prepare. What Debora ultimately did was to
Speaker 1: help create a standardized action plan to help tackle potentially
Speaker 1: fatal complications like hemorrhage. Debora refers to these plans as
Speaker 1: quality improvement toolkits or safety bundles. They can be implemented
Speaker 1: in hospitals in different ways, but they typically include a
Speaker 1: checklist of the four rs or steps to improve readiness, recognition, response,
Speaker 1: and reporting so that women receive life saving medications and
Speaker 1: treatments in time. In addition to the hemorrhage safety Bundle,
Speaker 1: there's also one for preclampsia and reduction of C sections.
Speaker 1: And I think my years of being in a frontline
Speaker 1: position in the hospitals and actually running hospitals and knowing
Speaker 1: how busy you are in those in those roles, helped
Speaker 1: me put together a model that would be very practical,
Speaker 1: uh and also just kind of cut through a lot
Speaker 1: of cripheral information and what would it take to actually
Speaker 1: really save lives and what did people really need to do?
Speaker 1: Safety bundles also include preparation protocols like running simulation drills
Speaker 1: and huddling with staff and family as the mother is
Speaker 1: being admitted to the hospital to assess possible risks she
Speaker 1: may have. California is one of the only states that
Speaker 1: has seen a rise in maternal mortality and also a
Speaker 1: decrease in fact um. Their data shows that in a
Speaker 1: five year period UH that there was about a fifty
Speaker 1: decrease in pregnant in maternal mortality, and that was unbelievably
Speaker 1: unexpected that we would see that decrease so quickly. Back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, California's maternal mortality rate was
Speaker 1: just shy of seventeen deaths per one thousand live births. Today,
Speaker 1: that number, according to an investigation by USA Today, has
Speaker 1: dropped to four deaths in one hundred thousand. That's the
Speaker 1: lowest maternal mortality rate in the country, and now other
Speaker 1: states are trying to follow suit. New Jersey has one
Speaker 1: of the highest national rates, at thirty six point two
Speaker 1: deaths per one hundred thousand live births. Deborah Bingham has
Speaker 1: joined a team in New Jersey to turn that around.
Speaker 1: The initiative, launched in two thousand nineteen is called Nurture
Speaker 1: New Jersey. New Jersey is the medicine cabinet of America
Speaker 1: and has some of the finest hospital systems in the
Speaker 1: United States. First Lady Tammy Murphy is the driving force
Speaker 1: behind this new initiative. So my naive assumption was that
Speaker 1: this all centered around access to prenatal care. And you know,
Speaker 1: it became immediately clear after going on a listening to
Speaker 1: her all around the state and speaking with all stakeholders,
Speaker 1: whether they be the hospital systems, foundations, nurses, dulas, midwives,
Speaker 1: any stakeholders who were out there, that the problem was
Speaker 1: much more complicated than I had assumed. Um, the problem
Speaker 1: is truly if you're going to look at this, it's
Speaker 1: systemic racism and implicit bias, and it brings in all
Speaker 1: the social determinants of health. And so our goal is
Speaker 1: to uh not only reduce maternal mortality by over five years,
Speaker 1: but it's also to eliminate racial disparities and birth outcomes.
Speaker 1: Tammy Murphy says, despite the new challenges posed by the
Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic, the work of Nurture New Jersey continues, and
Speaker 1: considering the fact that racial health disparities have only been
Speaker 1: exacerbated by the spread of COVID nineteen. She says this
Speaker 1: work is more relevant and necessary than ever. There's good
Speaker 1: news for pregnant women and mothers all over the country.
Speaker 1: At the end of two thousand eighteen, Congress passed groundbreaking
Speaker 1: legislation called the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act. The law addresses
Speaker 1: one of the fundamental problems at the heart of the crisis,
Speaker 1: the severe lack of reliable data about what actually kills
Speaker 1: American mothers. That was a very important piece of legislation
Speaker 1: that Congress passed. Again, Nina Martin, the set aside a
Speaker 1: lot of money for states to create maternal mortality review committees,
Speaker 1: to standardize them UM, to make them much more robust,
Speaker 1: much more helpful, um much more efficient than they have
Speaker 1: been in the past. That's really incredibly important. A lot
Speaker 1: of states when we started this process didn't even have
Speaker 1: maternal mortality committees, and now almost all of them do.
Speaker 1: The ones that did have them have UM improved to them,
Speaker 1: and so that's a that's a huge change. We're learning
Speaker 1: so much from that process. Some states are also trying
Speaker 1: to tackle the issue of insurance Medicaid finances. Nearly half
Speaker 1: of all births in the United States, Yet new mothers
Speaker 1: on Medicaid are only guaranteed care for two months after
Speaker 1: they deliver. What states are trying to do is to
Speaker 1: change the rules that allow women to continue to have
Speaker 1: Medicaid for the full year along with their babies postpartum.
Speaker 1: And so that means, you know, a lot of support
Speaker 1: for mental health, for substance use disorders, for cardiac problems,
Speaker 1: all the things that we know are killing women in
Speaker 1: that first year. What we know from the from the
Speaker 1: data is that most maternal deaths don't happen during pregnancy.
Speaker 1: They don't happen in the hospital. They happen um when
Speaker 1: women go home, they go They happen in the postpartum period. Um,
Speaker 1: they happen, you know, sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: two weeks, Sometimes it's a month, Sometimes it's up to
Speaker 1: a year. So it's incredibly important for women to understand
Speaker 1: that and for doctors and nurses and midwives and everybody
Speaker 1: to understand how risky the postpartum period is, and also
Speaker 1: to give women the information that they need to be
Speaker 1: able to recognize concerning symptoms. According to the c d C,
Speaker 1: thirty six percent of pregnancy related deaths occur up to
Speaker 1: one week after giving birth, and then another thirty happen
Speaker 1: up to a year postpartum, and it's impossible to predict
Speaker 1: which women will suffer such fatal complications, which is why
Speaker 1: Deppa being Him says it's important that all women are
Speaker 1: educated on symptoms. Her organization, the Institute for Perinatal Quality Improvement,
Speaker 1: is helping hospitals do just that. We actually made one
Speaker 1: hand out called Savior Life hand Out, which it outlines
Speaker 1: all of those post birth warning signs. So that's to
Speaker 1: help empower women to know when to seek care. Warning warning.
Speaker 1: My name is Stephanie. I'm going to be your discharged
Speaker 1: that I needs to meet you. Congratulation. N y U
Speaker 1: Land Gone in New York City is just one hospital
Speaker 1: that has put Deborah Savior Life hand out to use
Speaker 1: as part of its postpartum discharge education. But sometimes it's
Speaker 1: hard for overwhelmed new moms to absorb critical information about
Speaker 1: life threatening health issues. So n YU now sends families
Speaker 1: home with a Savior Life Magnet, which reminds moms so
Speaker 1: the symptoms they need to be aware of. I have
Speaker 1: this really helpful acronym here, it's post birth. So p
Speaker 1: IS stands for a painting your chest, OH stands for
Speaker 1: obstructive breathing or shortness of us. S stands for seizures,
Speaker 1: and T stands for thoughts of harming yourself or your
Speaker 1: baby the birth part. I really encourage all women that
Speaker 1: if they just aren't feeling like things are right, to
Speaker 1: not give up asking for someone to intervene, someone to
Speaker 1: look closer, who not just ignore their symptoms. A lot
Speaker 1: of women are very good at ignoring their symptoms. For
Speaker 1: most women, the first time they see a doctor is
Speaker 1: six weeks after giving birth, which is why the postpartum
Speaker 1: period can be so dangerous. But there's a way to
Speaker 1: fill this alarming gap in healthcare. According to Monica Malcolmore,
Speaker 1: the reproductive health Injustice researcher we heard in part one,
Speaker 1: she says insurance can make room for other systems of
Speaker 1: support like midwifery. For example, they see people three days postpartum,
Speaker 1: they see them seven days postpartum, they see them ten
Speaker 1: days postpart there's a more frequent visitation postpartum and also
Speaker 1: do us. Doulas are lay professionals in community that provide spiritual, informational,
Speaker 1: and physical support to pregnant people across the pregnancy. In
Speaker 1: my mind, they are an essential member of the healthcare team,
Speaker 1: and we need to integrate team based care because those
Speaker 1: are individuals who can move with pregnant people through time,
Speaker 1: as opposed to managing the time of birth, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of what we do clinically. There are another
Speaker 1: pair of eyes to sort of help us keep pregnant
Speaker 1: people safe and alive, and we need to own that
Speaker 1: at some point and figure out how to finance that.
Speaker 1: The other crucial element here to keep mothers safe after
Speaker 1: giving birth is making sure they don't have to rush
Speaker 1: back to work. I like to remind people that we
Speaker 1: actually have no paid family leave in the United States.
Speaker 1: If people can have the time that they need knowing
Speaker 1: that they're not going to lose their job or that
Speaker 1: they don't have to go back to work too soon,
Speaker 1: then we could go a really long way in reducing
Speaker 1: maternal death in the postpartum period rate. When Alison Felix
Speaker 1: decided in two thousand eighteen that she wanted to be
Speaker 1: a professional athlete and a mother, she was in the
Speaker 1: midst of contract negotiations with her long time sponsor Nike.
Speaker 1: This time around, she wanted to ensure that she was
Speaker 1: protected during and after pregnancy. The way athletic contracts are
Speaker 1: structured as a lot of it is performance based, and
Speaker 1: so you need to perform to a certain level or
Speaker 1: you will have a reduction in your salary. Obviously, when
Speaker 1: you have a baby, you need a bit of time
Speaker 1: to get back to talk performance um and at at
Speaker 1: the time when I was negotiating, they were unwilling to
Speaker 1: grant that time. UM and other athletes had experience also
Speaker 1: when they became pregnant that their contracts were actually paused,
Speaker 1: meaning that they were not receiving any pay um at all,
Speaker 1: and their likeness was still being used. They were still
Speaker 1: required to make appearances, they were still training with the
Speaker 1: intention of coming back. It's an issue that I had
Speaker 1: seen repeatedly throughout my career UM and the culture was
Speaker 1: really silent surrounding it, you know, it was just something
Speaker 1: that women would go through, and I got to the
Speaker 1: point where I felt like I had to speak on it.
Speaker 1: I had to share my experience because things I felt
Speaker 1: like things would not change if I didn't. Alison asked
Speaker 1: Nike to guarantee in her contract that she wouldn't be
Speaker 1: punished if she didn't perform at her best in the
Speaker 1: months before and after childbirth, Nike declined. In May of
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, Allison broke ties with Nike and wrote
Speaker 1: a powerful op ed in The New York Times detailing
Speaker 1: her experience. By the end of the month, Nike announced
Speaker 1: it would end financial penalties for pregnant athletes. By July,
Speaker 1: Allison signed with Athleta, an athletic wear company owned by
Speaker 1: Gap that wanted Allison explicitly for her outspoken advocacy. Are
Speaker 1: you proud of yourself for speaking up? I know that
Speaker 1: you have talked about your upbringing. You were raised in
Speaker 1: a very Christian family. UM, probably taught to be respectful,
Speaker 1: to respect authority, to not be a troublemaker, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So did it kind of go against your brain Allison,
Speaker 1: to say, Hey, this isn't right, I'm speaking out. It
Speaker 1: was completely against when against the grain. It was, UM,
Speaker 1: so far out of my comfort zone. UM. Not only
Speaker 1: you know, am I more of a private person, but
Speaker 1: everything you just mentioned was completely true for me, and
Speaker 1: so it just felt very scary. But after I did
Speaker 1: speak out, the encouragement from so many people, UM really
Speaker 1: reassured me. And more than anything, it was my daughter.
Speaker 1: You know, she was the one who helped me find
Speaker 1: my voice, and it really when I thought about her
Speaker 1: life and her growing up and the things that I
Speaker 1: didn't want her to have to you know, fight for UM.
Speaker 1: That definitely just gave me the booth that I needed.
Speaker 1: When we return messages of empowerment for today's pregnant moms
Speaker 1: and their families. That's right after this. A lot of
Speaker 1: what we face right now with the coronavirus pandemic is scary,
Speaker 1: but it makes some maternal health crisis and the inequities
Speaker 1: around giving birth in this country more urgent than ever.
Speaker 1: It's important to share the stories we've heard so that
Speaker 1: we can honor those who have been affected and possibly
Speaker 1: save others from the same fate. So here are some
Speaker 1: of the lessons from those who have experienced the unimaginable. First,
Speaker 1: Alison Felix, no matter who you are, educate yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: be fully prepared, have a birth plan, um, but don't
Speaker 1: be married to it. For me, that was a big issue.
Speaker 1: So just understand that issues may arise and um, you know,
Speaker 1: be willing to um go with the flow. But but
Speaker 1: educate yourself and be prepared and listen to your body. Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you even probably discounted the swelling
Speaker 1: you experienced. Had you known you were at high risk,
Speaker 1: I think you would have said, oh, I need to
Speaker 1: call my doctor right away about this. Right, definitely, definitely, Um,
Speaker 1: I would have gone right and immediately had I known
Speaker 1: what to look for, and like you said, listen to
Speaker 1: your body and if anything doesn't feel right, make sure
Speaker 1: you're hurt, and don't stop. Be persistent. I wish that
Speaker 1: I had understood walking into the hospital that day, that
Speaker 1: this was even a potential outcome from my wife. Again,
Speaker 1: Charles Johnson, this never even crossed our minds. We had
Speaker 1: no clue, and we consider ourselves progressive informed people that
Speaker 1: women were dying, you know, almost twice a day from
Speaker 1: childbirth in this country. I wish that I had known.
Speaker 1: Reporter Nina Martin says, there's power in that knowledge. I
Speaker 1: think it's really important for people to know the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario possible, because if you don't, then you will
Speaker 1: not trust yourself, your advocates will not continue to push
Speaker 1: in the way that they need. To believe what you're
Speaker 1: feeling in your own body and and then make somebody
Speaker 1: listen to you if possible, or to help get your
Speaker 1: the help of your advocates, to make them be listened
Speaker 1: and don't give up if possible, because it really could
Speaker 1: be the difference between life and death. Tragically, there's only
Speaker 1: so much a mother and her family can do. As
Speaker 1: we've learned, sometimes all the knowledge and the support in
Speaker 1: the world simply isn't enough. That's the heartbreaking thing about
Speaker 1: Charles Johnson's story is that he pushed, and Kia pushed
Speaker 1: and it wasn't enough. But you know what, if maybe
Speaker 1: Kira were still alive and she were giving birth, now
Speaker 1: people would listen to her right because they would know
Speaker 1: that that this happens. And you know, it's that's the
Speaker 1: heartbreak of it, um but it's also what he's been
Speaker 1: able to accomplish in what the work that he's done.
Speaker 1: In the years since Cura's death, Charles Johnson started a
Speaker 1: nonprofit dedicated to maternal mortality advocacy for Cure four Moms.
Speaker 1: It's an organization that I found it too honor Cure
Speaker 1: as well as the tens of thousands of women that
Speaker 1: we have lost due to this maternal mortality crisis, and
Speaker 1: so I truly believe that although there's nothing I can
Speaker 1: do to bring Cure back the highest honor, that I
Speaker 1: can pay her to do everything that I can to
Speaker 1: send other mother's home with their precious babies for care
Speaker 1: of four moms also helps provide support to families left behind,
Speaker 1: providing babies, supplies, child care services, legal support, and even
Speaker 1: grief counseling, because Charles and his young boys know all
Speaker 1: too well what that's like. As they get older, they're understanding. Uh,
Speaker 1: it grows and they ask questions, and I do my best.
Speaker 1: I made a decision very early on that I would
Speaker 1: do my best to celebrate here and everything that we do.
Speaker 1: If you come into our home, there are huge pictures
Speaker 1: of her everywhere. Uh. We deal with Mommy's memory head on.
Speaker 1: We tell stories. When Prince comes on the radio, we
Speaker 1: turn it up the full brast and we say that,
Speaker 1: you know, Mommy loved this song. When we go places,
Speaker 1: we talked about Mommy took you here. When we watch
Speaker 1: Race Car Drive and we talked about how much Mommy
Speaker 1: loved to race cars. But it doesn't matter, because it's
Speaker 1: still this immense void, and it still doesn't prevent Charles
Speaker 1: from waking up in the middle of the night, just crying,
Speaker 1: just saying that he wants his mommy. It doesn't prevent
Speaker 1: Langston asking the question, well, why can't mommy come to
Speaker 1: my school? And so I do my best to explain that, well,
Speaker 1: mommy is in heaven and you know she's doing important work.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing that can prepare you for what it's like.
Speaker 1: When you tell a two year old dad mommy is
Speaker 1: in heaven and he says to you, well, Daddy, I
Speaker 1: want to go to heaven, all right. That just rips
Speaker 1: your heart right out of your chest. And at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, if I can prevent one other
Speaker 1: father of having the conversation with their children that I
Speaker 1: have to have with mine, then it's all worth it.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to support families like the Johnson's, you
Speaker 1: can visit for Kira for moms dot com. We started
Speaker 1: reporting this story long before COVID nineteen infected hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people across the country, not to mention millions globally.
Speaker 1: It's a public health crisis of historic scale and one
Speaker 1: that frankly, this country was not prepared for what the
Speaker 1: coronavirus pandemic will mean for the maternal health crisis. We
Speaker 1: may not know for a very long time, but the
Speaker 1: fact is right now, tens of thousands of women are
Speaker 1: giving birth in unprecedented circumstances, sometimes alone and often without
Speaker 1: the support networks and in person care they need to
Speaker 1: stay healthy before, during, and after birth. Meanwhile, COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: is only underscoring already existing racial disparities that put black
Speaker 1: and underserved Americans at greater risk. While it's terrifying to
Speaker 1: think of the damage this pandemic could do to the
Speaker 1: maternal mortality crisis, there are still so many people, healthcare
Speaker 1: professionals and advocates who are working tirelessly on behalf of
Speaker 1: pregnant women. To that in We've compiled a resource this
Speaker 1: section around the maternal mortality crisis, including people, information and
Speaker 1: organizations mentioned in these episodes. You can find that in
Speaker 1: my morning newsletter wake Up Call, and I'll link to
Speaker 1: it on my social media channels. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: get Wake Up Call every morning in your inbox, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe at Katie Currek dot com to share this
Speaker 1: important series or to subscribe to Next Question. Find us
Speaker 1: on an Apple podcast, the I Heart radio app, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen until next time and my Next Question.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Couric. Next Question with Katie Kurik is the
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Katie Currek Media. The
Speaker 1: executive producers are Katie Kurik, Courtney Litz, and Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Lauren Hanson. Our show producer is
Speaker 1: Bethan Macaluso. The associate producers are Emily Pinto and Derek Clements.
Speaker 1: Editing by Derrek Clements, Dylan Fagin and Lowell Berlante, Mixing
Speaker 1: by Dylan Fagan. Our researcher is Gabriel Loser. For more
Speaker 1: information on today's episode, go to Katie Curik dot com
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