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SHAWNEE BENTON-GIBSON: I just wanted to illustrate

how over-the-top my daughter is in every aspect of her life.

Shamony's hyper. She's crazy.

She does everything with force. She's loud.

She brushes her teeth like the teeth did something to her.

SHAMONY: Bed-Stuy do or die.

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

So we got to run.

Oh lord. I don't need to warm up.

I got this. I got this. Why you laughing?

♪ Would you make a, make a ♪

Woo!

This crazy man

got me running too much.

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪

SHAMONY: How does it feel for me to be moving out?

- Uh, okay. SHAMONY: Okay!

Same day, different apartment.

OMARI MAYNARD: I'm making a list.

I told Shamony to make 20 lists before.

- The thing is that both Omari

and I have pregnancy brain, right, O?

- Yeah, we do. SHAMONY: It's clearly you.

WOMAN: Oh goodness.

So your baby going to be Moses Maynard Gibson?

SHAMONY: No. OMARI: No.

WOMAN: No, I'm kidding. Moses Maynard?

SHAMONY: No.

♪ On all the things you can't see ♪

♪ Make a wish on all that lives within thee ♪

♪ If you're foolishly in love with me ♪

♪ It's a fine day for sure ♪

♪ Taste the fruit of me ♪

♪ Make love to all you see ♪

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

[baby giggles, babbles]

- Say hi.

[laughs]

[indiscernible conversation]

[laughter]

♪

♪

♪

SHAMONY: Hey, baby.

Time is flying. Four months already.

Every day is a new process. You wake up like, "Oh my god,

I'm that much closer to being a mom again."

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪ Ah ah ah ah ♪

♪ Would you make a, make a, make a wish on my love? ♪

♪ You're running ♪

♪ And I try ♪

- Hi, sweet baby.

So I am... What? I can't say sweet baby?

WOMAN: Who're you talking to?

- I'm talking to Khari.

WOMAN: Oh.

- So, um--

Yes, my plan was to have you at home,

so maybe your auntie will record.

And I can still have you at home.

We have three hours from now.

But, however, it doesn't always work, right?

So if you were born tomorrow--

OMARI: It's been four months

and three days since she passed away.

You know, it feels like it was last week.

- Greetings, family.

I didn't know all of this beautifulness was behind me.

I'm so blown away and so appreciative

and so humbled by your presence.

[applause]

So, um, this is my daughter's birthday.

She would've been 31 years old today,

and she loved to plan things and to party,

so we're having this celebration on her behalf.

This is a celebration of life,

but also it's about how Shamony has been speaking

to all of us in our family

and extended community since she passed.

About an hour ago, I started to, to falter.

Um, and I won't even call it falter.

I'm just experiencing my grief, you know.

WOMAN: Alright, so how you want us to line up, cousin?

SHAWNEE: Um, family first?

WOMAN: Can I get family, age order please?

♪ If you soar ♪

♪ Over the lowest valley ♪

♪ Then you can manifest ♪

♪ All there is ♪

♪ To dream your dream ♪

[indiscernible chatter]

SHAWNEE: It's a struggle every day,

particularly because what happened with Shamony

was absolutely preventable.

She ended up with a C-section.

SHAMONY: My baby.

My baby that I've been waiting forever for.

WOMAN: You did amazing, Shamony.

OMARI: So we leave the hospital.

Within the first week, she was complaining

about having shortness of breath when she talked.

JASMINE GIBSON: She walked down the stairs

to get something.

And when she was trying to get back up,

she couldn't move.

Like, she was just, she had to just lay on the floor for a while.

OMARI: We called the hospital,

telled them what the symptoms were.

The doctor said, you know, "It's okay. Just relax."

That proceeded for the next two weeks.

We go back to the hospital for, um, Shamony

so that they could remove her staples from her C-section.

I was again telling them what the symptoms were.

Asking them what are some things that we can do.

And, you know, the answer pretty much was the same every time.

"Just makes sure that she rests."

There wasn't much of a sense of urgency on their part at all.

SHAWNEE: That's the expert, and I'm not a doctor,

so okay.

I rallied people to make meals for her.

I did what we do!

Just take care of her.

OMARI: Two weeks after, you know, she gave birth,

Shamony was complaining that she had really sharp chest pains.

She says, "I want to go to the hospital now."

Her mom and her aunt were in the back with her.

And as I'm packing the bag, I just hear them screaming and screaming,

"Omari, Omari, come in here. Come in here."

So I run in there, and then I just see Shamony is,

she's just in shock.

[siren wailing]

SHAWNEE: The ambulance came.

It seems like forever, but it was only minutes.

And I immediately started talking to them about what was happening.

Like, "She just had a C-section."

I'm telling them the symptoms.

- You know, they kept asking me, they kept asking her mother,

"Is she on any drugs or anything like that?

Was she taking any drugs?"

Like, "No, she doesn't take drugs."

- Next set of people come in.

"Is she on drugs? Does she use drugs?"

I just told your colleagues. I'm telling you.

Then another round of people come in,

"Is she on drugs?"

I'm like, "Do y'all talk?"

OMARI: They finally take her in an ambulance to the closest hospital.

- That was not the place

where I would want my daughter to be sent ever.

There was no money in that hospital.

They didn't have what they needed to care for her.

They had been divested from.

OMARI: They eventually figured it was a pulmonary embolism.

But all they could do there is give her blood thinners

and hope that the blood clot would pop.

We waited, you know, and it was, I want to say, a solid 12 hours.

JASMINE: So many people were showing up at the hospital,

just standing in the hallway, praying, praying, praying

like, you know, putting it out there that she was going to,

some-- a miracle was gonna happen.

- And I'm watching this while watching my daughter in distress.

And just thinking, if they would have listened to her

during that postpartum time,

it wouldn't have come to this point.

JASMINE: My cousin comes in the room and she's like,

"She's gone."

Everybody just fell apart.

[long beep]

OMARI: There's just so many levels

of frustrations that come, you know,

and just understanding the scope of who we are

and what we look like and where we live, you know,

and the stereotypes that come with that, you know.

Having to deal with that on top of watching your partner pass away,

you know, it's, um,

tough isn't the word, you know.

It's, it's, it's more than tough.

Let's go downstairs.

[groans]

Alright.

You ready? Let's go.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Telling Anari that her mother passed away was,

it was hard.

She asks about her mother all the time.

♪

♪

♪

- Anari!

Okay.

You want to give daddy hugs.

Okay.

[laughter]

OMARI: Shamony definitely was, you know, my muse.

- Omari here is going to be doing my makeup.

[clicks tongue]

- It's going to be money. Go.

Got to start in the middle, right?

Make sure you put it on nice and thick.

[Shamony laughing]

OMARI: I've never lived in this house without her.

There's times where I wake up,

and I'm just shocked

to be sleeping in our bed by myself.

[baby crying, fussing]

[indiscernible]

[indiscernible]

[indiscernible]

BRUCE MCINTYRE: It's hard adjusting.

I can't believe that Amber

is not going to be coming back home.

- So this month, we'll be learning about plants.

So today, I'm going to demonstrate how to plant.

Organic potting mix, it's usually good for every kind of plant.

You're gonna need--

I'm using a Mason jar, but you don't need to use a Mason jar.

You can use whatever you have at home.

This is going to get messy,

so I'm sure the kids will love this.

Let them. If you do have soil at home,

let them experience it, play with it.

Um, it's a good sensory activity as well--

BRUCE: I can still hear her feet,

stomping her feet and running in.

She, uh, opens the door and jumps straight on the bed

and starts jumping on me

and pushing me and pulling on me and waking me up,

uh, and she says that we're pregnant.

[indiscernible conversations]

AMBER: [screams] It's a boy.

BRUCE: Amber had such a pregnant glow to her.

She was just so excited.

[cheering]

BRUCE: During her second and third trimester,

we started noticing she was having headaches.

She was getting dizzy,

and she was having a tough time breathing.

And all of her concerns were being taken lightly.

"Oh, these are just pregnancy-related symptoms.

You're okay."

So I took the initiative to search

and do research on midwives and doulas

and stumbled across Nubia Martin.

NUBIA MARTIN: Bruce and Amber reached out

trying to switch over to home birth.

So let's start right here. WOMAN: Okay.

- She knew something was off, and she was hoping

that switching to midwifery care would get to the bottom of that.

Walk your hands--

When they sent her prenatal records for us to review,

the first thing that jumped out was the issue with the platelets.

I said this is not right. You need to go to the hospital.

BRUCE: If the platelet levels go lower than 150, they need to be monitored.

Her platelet levels had been less and deteriorating since December.

We're in April.

This is high risk.

The hospital's not bringing this to our attention at all.

Amber wanted to write a tell-all

about the care that she had been receiving.

Finally, they started paying attention to her

and diagnosed her with HELLP syndrome.

They could have caught it early, treated it.

RENITA ISAAC: She went into the hospital.

They induced her labor, and they rushed her into a C-section.

The high-risk doctor just left my daughter there with some,

uh, a young team there.

BRUCE: They cut her open. Her blood is water-like at this point.

She's lied open on the table,

bleeding out.

They were neglecting her until it was way too late.

We thought Montefiore was going to take care of her.

We had Amber's mother, who worked there for 25 years.

RENITA: They gave that statement

that they had a mortality rate of 0.01 percent.

That's all I got from them.

Amber would've been a wonderful mother.

She was working on her masters. She wanted to be an art therapist.

She started teaching, and she loved these kids.

She wanted this so badly, you know.

She's my only child.

She's all I had.

I'm grateful that she left Elias for us.

♪

♪

♪

OMARI: What's going on, man?

BRUCE: How you doing, man? Yo, I got to give you a hug, bro.

Oh, man.

OMARI: I heard about Bruce and what happened to Amber Isaac.

I just immediately reached out to him

to just say, "Hey, man, it's a lot. I know exactly how you feel.

If you need somebody to talk to, then, you know, here I am."

OMARI: I wanted specifically to just meet you,

because I know that y'all know how I'm feeling.

Even if I'm not able to articulate it the way I want to, like, I know.

- It's like this shit, this shit is just so, like, surreal sometimes.

Like, I just be thinking, like, "Damn, this can't be real life."

OMARI: Yeah.

- You know, I still got that--

I feel like somebody's foot is in my throat, like--

- Yeah. Yeah.

- Like, that's-- - I know.

I still don't feel like I've grasped the entire concept

of her not being here physically, you know.

And of course, there's other people in our position, you know,

so that's why I feel too, we can turn our pain into power

and make something of this, you know.

So, I could either... chill

or I could, you know, do something, you know.

And I'm taking the position of doing something

because, you know, that's what I know that we are here for, you know.

- Yeah. I got to take action in some way, some way. I got to--

If I'm not doing nothing, I at least got to study

so I know what I'm fighting against.

OMARI: Yeah.

Alright.

You ready to do this?

- Ready when you ready. - Alright, cool, cool.

♪

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[panting]

♪

OMARI: Just got to keep going. That's it.

That's all we got to do, one foot in front of the other.

♪

♪

OMARI: Come on. come on.

This is it right there, right here.

Amber and Shamony at the finish line.

Come on.

♪

- Woo!

♪

♪

OMARI: Right in there.

Come on now.

- Hi!

Hey, we matching?

ANITA WARREN: I was aware that this is a growing epidemic

in our communities,

and that is so upsetting to me.

An alarm has to be sounded about this.

SHAWNEE: I never thought that this would happen to my family.

ANITA: Yes.

- Because I do reproductive justice work.

- Mm-hmm. SHAWNEE: But,

you know, just also, why wouldn't it?

We're Black and brown. ANITA: Right. Right.

- You know, she's a woman. She was having a baby,

so why would we think we would be exempt?

Because we have the knowledge? ANITA: Mm-hmm.

- Knowledge doesn't save you from this epidemic.

ANITA: That's right.

- Omari, I can't speak for you, but I'm mourning

growing old with my daughter.

- Yeah, definitely.

- We were 20 years apart,

and the women in my family live a long time.

So I anticipated being 90 and her being 70

and getting on each other's nerves in that space,

you know, um.

So mourning what could have been is also very real.

- I definitely want to partner with fathers

who specifically have suffered loss the way I have

and to get fathers together to just really talk about

how after, you know, you lose somebody important,

how the community helps.

- If it's possible to have this space be one of the hubs

where men gather and have these conversations,

I especially want it for Black men,

because it's a desert out there in reference to support.

- You know, this is not something that is just specific to me

or specific to just a handful of people.

Like, hundreds and thousands of men

are going through this same, you know, scenario, situation.

[phone rings]

ANARI: Look, Daddy.

OMARI: Hello. - Look.

BOY: [on laptop] Hi.

- Good morning. Is Anthony there?

I'm one of Anthony's math teachers.

ANTHONY: This is Anthony.

- Um, so what's going on, Anthony?

You haven't been really completing your math assignments,

so I just wanted to see what was the reason for that?

- I want to do the race car.

- Okay.

ANARI: Race car. OMARI: Okay, baby.

If you're having some troubles with your math work,

then you're going to get in contact with me,

and I'm going to help you out with it, okay?

ANTHONY: Okay. OMARI: Alright, awesome.

You have a great day, Anthony.

[humming]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

[laughs]

You're a little tricky, huh? You trying to get tricky?

You trying to get tricky?

As I'm trying to get through day to day,

a handful of men got in contact with me.

Their partners also passed away.

And it had such an effect on me.

I wasn't by myself.

- Thank you for all the brothers who came, and I'm definitely grateful,

uh, for what we're able to do, creating this circle,

you know, with Omari

to support brothers like Omari and Mustafa

who are in the particular place where they sit.

- My name's Mustafa Shabazz.

Me and Omari, we're basically going through the same pain right now.

My lady died. Like you said, you felt hopeless?

I felt the same way.

I watched her take her last breath in front of my eyes,

and there was nothing I can do.

Nothing.

I had, I had to go and get a DNA test

just to take my son out of the hospital.

They didn't believe that he was my son.

I said, why would I be here? Why would I--

Why would I even be here if this is not my child?

I just, honestly, I just don't think they care.

MAN: When we stop to think about maternal mortality,

that's a reality that any of us can face,

and as a father with a daughter, that's scary for me.

We have to give ourselves permission to be angry.

And so it's important for us that we have a space

where I can go and create the relationships

where we're vulnerable enough to share in this environment.

- It could be any one of us.

Honestly, man. Like, the tables just turned so fast,

you know, when you, you don't have no,

you don't have the control, you don't have the power.

But with that said, uh,

you could have the support.

You know, we could support each other,

creating the community that we want to see,

and the way we want to see it, you know.

With that community, I want to create a space

where we can then start to try to change policy, you know,

and have a thousand,

hundreds of thousands of people backing what we're saying.

Because that's the only way it works.

[applause]

WOMAN: Today, we stand in solidarity

with the family of Amber Isaac.

- I can't even believe

we're even here today about this situation.

Amber was just such a divine woman.

All she wanted to do was help people.

And y'all took that from us.

Um, I actually had some stuff that I had written down

that I want to discuss and that I want to go over because my mind

WOMAN: It's okay. - has been everywhere

since this whole situation occurred.

We're supposed to be the most advanced country in the world,

but the racial disparities are becoming more

and more evident each day.

Black women are four times more likely to die

than their white counterparts with the same symptoms.

The maternal mortality rate has doubled here in the United States.

It was safer for our parents to have children

than it is for us today.

MAN: Amen.

- Why is that?

[applause]

- Welcome, everybody. I'm Dr. Neel Shah,

and this is Expecting More Dialogues

which is the new web series we're kicking off

that is exploring the opportunities,

the challenges, the hopes,

and the lived experiences of people

who are giving birth in America right now.

We've invited three incredible human beings

to be part of this dialogue that we're going to have today

and to teach me and to teach all of us about what it is

that we can be doing about this problem.

So let's start here maybe.

Bruce, um, tell us what happened.

I'm not sure everybody out there knows the story.

- Amber was facing negligence

and incompetence within the medical system.

Down from the OB to the, um, to the secretary

was being nasty with her.

Down to security.

You know?

The day I took Amber in, when she was admitted into the hospital,

security at the front telling me,

"Oh, it's okay, Mr. Babydaddy,

go sit down over there.

You can't go up."

CHANEL L. PORCHIA-ALBERT: You know, everything that Bruce described

in his story

is things that advocates like myself

and others have been saying for years, right,

that we have a systemic issue.

And I've said it in, in, in packed rooms, full of OBs.

You know what I mean? Like, patients, ultimately, they want to be seen,

they want to be heard, and they want to know

that someone genuinely cares about their wellbeing.

NEEL: I think that the wellbeing of moms is a bellwether

for the wellbeing of society in general.

And that's why every injustice in our society

shows up in maternal health and in maternal health outcomes.

In 2018,

journalists started to tell the stories of people

that were dying in childbirth.

Those stories ended up compelling the federal government

to start to track maternal mortality much more systematically.

So 2018 was the first year we really did that.

I started to read and see all these trends,

including the explosion in C-section rates.

We intervene with major surgery 500 percent more

than we used to in the 1970s.

And maternal mortality rates just fly upwards.

And when it comes to Black women, those risks are higher.

C-sections do save lives. I'm trained to do them. I believe in them.

But major surgery is major surgery.

Surgical complications like organ injury,

hemorrhage, infection are about three times more likely

to happen with a C-section than a vaginal delivery.

[baby cries]

Oh, it's very cute. Congratulations to you both.

MAN: Thank you so much. WOMAN: Thank you.

NEEL: Black women have a higher rate of C-sections.

Yeah. I would really encourage you to do that.

I started to think about

my own practice

and how it's possible that really well-intended people

can be doing racist things.

For example, when Black people are expressing concern

around pain or other symptoms, they're heard less.

And in medicine, we've literally created algorithms

where we've conflated race and racism.

You can help somebody understand

their odds of having a successful vaginal delivery

with a calculator.

And if they're Black, their odds drop.

And it has nothing to do with who they are or their biology.

The calculator ends up gatekeeping treatment,

care, and support.

So if you're Black, you're less likely to get good support

to have the vaginal delivery that you want.

HELENA GRANT: I've been a midwife 23 years.

I went to Georgetown University.

I have a bachelor's of science in nursing,

and I have a masters in midwifery education.

Let's see what this baby is doing today.

[indiscernible conversation]

HELENA: We are trained to let those that can have births

that happen spontaneously the way it's always been.

We care for women in the home, birth centers,

and the hospital space.

The head is still down. WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

HELENA: Nice and down.

We follow a shared decision-making model with the patient,

giving them a lot of options to choose their path.

So you got everything prepared for the birth?

WOMAN: Mm-hmm.

HELENA: I'm here to practice an allowance

for her body to do what it needs to do

to give birth.

Only six to nine percent of all births in our country are by midwives.

In Europe, midwives were integrated

into women's healthcare,

and they're doing better

than our dismal maternal mortality morbidity rate.

We are higher than the UK, higher than France,

higher than Germany, higher than Sweden.

We have the highest rate of all industrialized nations.

In this country, as technology has advanced,

childbirth has become more technologically driven.

In hospitals, by and large,

um, it has not been a shared decision-making model.

We call it the medical technocratic patriarchal model.

Pregnancy is a healthcare challenge to manage.

- We have 9:00 a. m. induction

of a 21-year-old G1, P0 at 39 and three.

We have two inductions, we have KW

of a 34-year-old G3, P1-0-1-1.

And the other 7:00 p. m. induction is a CWC Fetal Specialty Clinic patient

who's had a history of one prior C-section.

HELENA: Doctors are trained

in active management of labor.

Induce them and get them going and do all this stuff.

You put her on Pitocin via the IV

to get the contractions regular.

The goal is every two to three minutes for your contractions. Okay.

HELENA: You break the water

and you do things to push her

along the labor curve, as we call it,

um, to get that baby out.

The thing that she's going to remember the most

is what happened during her labor and birth.

Every woman does.

[indiscernible conversations]

HELENA: Women have to take that back.

CARLINA RIVERA: Women of color count for nearly 80 percent

of pregnancy-related death in this city.

We are just dragging our feet

on one of the most serious issues of our time.

We're going to call up Shawnee B. Gibson.

[applause]

- I'm a fellow citizen and mother in mourning

over the loss of my eldest child

whose death could have been prevented.

Today, I act as a vessel and a conduit

for the voice of my daughter, Shamony Makeba Gibson,

and the voices of so many young women of color

just like her.

As a reproductive advocate and leader in the reproductive health community,

I thought that I would be spared.

I naively believed that my optimism

about how knowledgeable we all were

would shield her from this epidemic.

Wow.

What I am seeking are systems and institutions

that are committed to making sure that we address racism

and anti-Black racism, specifically.

I am here to declare that my work will not stop.

I am here to hold myself accountable

and to hold those responsible

who knowingly and unknowingly keep this epidemic going.

I am here to let you know that Shamony Makeba Gibson lived.

She is alive in this movement, and she is alive in this moment

as I speak her name, Shamony Makeba Gibson.

Shamony Makeba Gibson.

Shamony Makeba Gibson.

Thank you for listening.

[applause]

♪

♪

♪

NEEL: As a professor at Harvard School of Public Health,

I had an opportunity to travel to different hospitals across the country,

studying maternal health outcomes.

Oklahoma is a place that has a maternal mortality rate

that's double the national average.

When you rank every state in terms of maternal mortality,

they're in the bottom five.

The medical centers that we're working with in Tulsa

have some of the highest rates of injury

during childbirth in the state.

They take care of a lot of people of color,

and they have a persistently high C-section rate.

We're here today because we think

that we could get the whole country to reimagine

the care that people should expect

during one of the most important and vulnerable moments of our lives.

This will only really work if each and every one of you

believes that this is possible too.

WOMAN: This is triage. - Hi.

WOMAN 2: Awesome.

NEEL: Labor and delivery units in the modern era resemble cardiac ICUs.

The only difference is that our operating rooms are attached.

We take 99 percent of people giving birth in America,

we put them in ICUs, and we surround them by surgeons.

So we see a lot of surgery.

It doesn't take rocket science to figure it out.

- We get a lot of laboring patients out here.

NEEL: And how many ORs do you guys have?

- Two.

NEEL: Are they right on the unit? - Yes.

NEEL: Yeah. - Yeah.

NEEL: In a hospital, the cost of doing a C-section

is lower than the cost of doing a vaginal delivery.

The shorter that labor is, the less it will cost.

It is also true though, that if you do a C-section

the hospital gets paid about 50 percent more

than if there's vaginal delivery.

You can imagine what kind of incentives that might set up.

FELICIA ELLIS: Hey, how are you?

WOMAN: Good.

FELICIA: Edwards. [indiscernible dialogue]

FELICIA: Okay.

In this state,

Black women represent ten percent of births,

but we're 20 percent of the deaths.

And Tulsa is one of the worst places in the country

to have a baby.

I didn't know.

How are you today?

[indiscernible dialogue]

PAUL ELLIS: Alright. How you doing? FELICIA: Good.

WOMAN: Well, let's take a look at baby.

Let's measure this belly. FELICIA: Okay.

[whirring]

[heartbeats thumping]

FELICIA: I called my mom crying one morning

because the statistics

of being Black having a baby in America, like, hit me.

Really I hadn't thought about it until Serena Williams

talked about her birth experience

and she's, like, the best athlete in the world.

And she had to make them listen to her about her blood clots.

[indiscernible dialogue]

And then when I started dealing with myself,

I was like, this is a big deal.

A Black woman having a baby is like

a Black man in a traffic stop with the police.

You have to, like, really pay attention

to what's going on, like, every step of the way.

NURSE: There you go.

FELICIA: And in the hospital,

appointments are quick, they're not intimate.

You don't have time to build that trust.

WOMAN: Have a good day. PAUL: You too.

FELICIA: It's going to be hard

to find someone I'm just comfortable with.

HELENA: Very early in my career,

I noticed how Black women were, uh, used

as guinea pigs

in the hospital, um, system.

I became a nurse in a very elite teaching hospital,

and I started to see things that just really

don't go along with my philosophy.

If you have private insurance and you're white,

you have a private physician who's on call for you.

The clinic population by and large

tend to be Black and brown women who have Medicaid,

are treated by resident learners.

Every woman is getting her vagina cut open.

A woman doesn't need it, but you cut it

because you need to learn how to sew.

I'm at a place that is literally practicing on people.

Black women have been experimented on

to perfect the profession of gynecology.

The United States had

a population of enslaved peoples

that they could do what they wanted to, when they wanted to,

how they wanted to do it.

As a woman, your worth is about

what your womb can produce for my plantation.

Black women are having so many children,

they're getting fistulas.

Enter J. Marion Sims.

He's considered the father of gynecology

who decides that he's going to figure out how to fix this.

He's fixing it so she can go back

and have more children so that she, as a commodity,

continues to be useful for her slave master.

And he cut them open however many times.

And then there were modules written about the things

that were done to them

saying, well, they don't feel pain,

but the woman is literally screaming.

And that's how the United States becomes a superpower

when it comes to OB/GYN surgery.

Black women by and large

continue to be cared for

by learners.

It's the marrying of the over-medicalization

with inexperience

that's really the foundation

when it comes to maternal mortality and morbidity.

ANARI: Momma.

OMARI: Who is that?

- Mommy.

OMARI: Good. Now show us your project. Come.

I see it.

Whoa. ANARI: Let's do it.

Don't spill it!

Look, Mommy.

Wow, that's pretty!

[Omari chuckles]

OMARI: Let me see it. - Hmm?

OMARI: Let me see it. Good.

We have pictures of Shamony up everywhere.

She's always around.

[rattling]

[paint hissing]

Through my artwork, I'm able to connect with her

in a way that I've never had since she passed.

It really does help with how I process.

One day I thought, right now, I paint one of Amber Isaac,

paint one of Bruce's partner.

I wanted to give him this gift.

♪

♪

♪

- I'm gonna set up over here.

♪

♪

♪

Sanitizers.

Thank you.

Alright. So the front, we got to get the front gate.

NUBIA: Hey, how are you?

Good. Good, good, good, good.

BRUCE: I'm sorry. SHAWNEE: How you feeling?

BRUCE: How you doing?

[Shawnee laughs]

- Hanging in there?

- Sweating bullets, are you?

- I know. I'm here working.

Yeah. I'm here working.

Speaking of the-- Yo, we was just talking about you.

OMARI: Really?

Yeah, I had to-- I got here, like, five, ten minutes ago

but I had to stop and get some coffee.

SHAWNEE: I knew you were addicted.

OMARI: You got free hands or somebody to hold your--

Alright. Cool, cool. This is for you.

BRUCE: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man.

[exhales]

OMARI: Love you, man.

BRUCE: [cries] Love you, too.

OMARI: We're doing this together, man.

[sniffles]

BRUCE: [over megaphone] Thank y'all so much for being here.

This is our first event.

We're a little nervous, but we need to be here.

We need to keep talking until they're hearing us.

We're tired of saying that we need justice.

We need change.

We're done asking. We're demanding.

- Nobody's asking for anything exorbitant or extravagant

or out of the ordinary.

We just want to make sure that we have the same

as anybody else.

NUBIA: We are dying at a rate

12 times more in this city.

If these numbers were flipped around

and white women were dying at the rate that Black women are dying,

it would be a national crisis.

Why is that not deemed a crisis?

SHAWNEE: This crazy behind system is killing us.

We call it Aftershock,

because Shamony's death was like a tsunami.

When Black mothers die, there's a ripple effect and, yes,

the death is the earthquake.

But the shit afterward is overwhelming.

The nights where I get up, and it's like,

"Oh my god, I miss my daughter. I miss her calling me."

Now I wish she would call me 30 times a day.

After today, taking action,

Shamony lives through me being an activist and a revolutionary

and the revolution will be tweeted,

Instagrammed, Facebooked.

It will be recorded.

[cheering and applause]

DANA TYLER: Two fathers are sharing their heartbreak

to draw attention to medical disparities in Black communities.

OMARI: Shamony's death was

a direct result of systemic racism.

BRUCE: Within the medical system, there's been this repetitive pattern.

If Amber would've received standard care, she would be here.

DANA: And that's what he wants now

for every mother of color.

NEEL: Part of what I want to think through with you all is just

about, like, the messaging.

And I think it's really important that we name

what the mission is, which is equity.

LABRISA WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. It can't be safer for all mothers

until it's safer for Black mothers, Native mothers.

And so when we talk about equity,

there's folks who have to catch up

before that can even, like, be a thing.

NEEL: Yeah.

You know, you can't fix things that you don't name,

and I do deeply believe that.

We're really, really fortunate

to be working with a community partner,

LaBrisa Williams,

an extraordinary advocate for birth justice and birth equity,

is someone that we can stand shoulder to shoulder with

as we're walking around the hospitals

and trying to build that accountability to the community

within the health systems.

[indiscernible dialogue]

[elevator dings]

WOMAN: You guys ready to start?

NEEL: Yeah, sure. WOMAN 2: Yeah.

WOMAN: So we'll gather right over there.

NEEL: We designed a process that structures communication.

So every person giving birth has a systematic way of knowing

that what they're expecting, what they want to know,

what they want to say is going to get heard.

Everything that we're reading in the headlines

about maternal mortality in our country going up,

what people are dying of is not the clinical condition

on the death certificate.

It's a failure of communication, teamwork every time.

What Team Birth is about,

it's doing the things that we already know,

but making sure the people that we're caring for can see it.

LABRISA: We really focus on patient experience

and, like, make sure they feel seen and heard.

NURSE: Yeah.

WOMAN: That's awesome.

NEEL: It's a very, very simple idea.

It's a version of the same dry erase whiteboard

that exists in almost every inpatient room

in every hospital in America.

Usually, that board is primarily

for nurses to kind of talk to themselves.

We structured it to have the preferences of the person giving birth.

And then there's a place where you write down the next time

the team is going to get back together again and talk.

- The most important thing is that we're being transparent

with the patient about what the plan is.

NEEL: I'm sure you all have seen

the headlines around maternal mortality.

You've seen the way that it's been impacting

the people that you're caring for.

So this is about better outcomes,

which is also about building trust along the way.

When we walk through Bruce's story,

there's so many examples of that not happening,

not only not feeling seen and heard,

but also not being told what was happening.

Right? That should never happen.

NUBIA: It's Bruce.

- Hello, guys. What's up, everybody?

Oh.

Oh, look at the couches.

NUBIA: Yes!

How's Elias? - Oh, he's doing good.

I really started talking to Nubia more

about the medical system.

Now that more people are paying attention,

we have to band together to bring effective change

and help our communities.

My name is Bruce McIntyre.

Us as a collective have been doing a lot of groundwork,

redirecting the course for birthing equity.

- I met Bruce and Amber, his partner,

because they were being grossly neglected

in the hospital setting.

Amber did not survive.

And one of the things I was talking to Bruce about was

how we continue to just honor,

um, who she was as, as a mother

and make sure this doesn't happen for somebody else.

Like, we can sit and, you know, wait

for somebody to sweep in,

but it's an SOS situation

and we have to save ourselves.

BRUCE: Yeah.

- I know that what I want in my communities,

in my birth communities, from my clients is support.

When I think of the hospital climate,

some people are welcoming birth support

and other hospitals are not.

- Right.

My belief is that, you know, people need

to have safe options across the board.

Safer hospitals or, like I always say, look for alternatives.

You know, you don't have to birth at a hospital

if that's not, you know, if you're part

of that 85 percent that's low risk, you know.

But we want to do the best that we can

to give people a safe vaginal birth,

if that is their desire, in an environment

where they're going to be listened to,

respected, valued, and, you know, at peace.

Yeah.

ASHLEE: Can I touch your belly? FELICIA: Uh-huh.

- How are you doing?

Yes. PAUL: Oh, Lily-bug.

ASHLEE: What's going on in there?

FELICIA: There's a lot going on.

ASHLEE: Yeah. [laughs]

So this is what we're going to do. We're going to try this exercise.

- Okay.

ASHLEE: And this is going to show

what it looks like

when you have a contraction,

what a contraction does.

Okay?

So, this is your baby. This is the uterus.

You're going to put the baby in your uterus.

FELICIA: I don't know what I would be doing

without a doula right now.

She's from Tulsa. She's Black.

I have, like, a friend who's educated in this

that I talk to every two weeks.

ASHLEE: Keep contracting, keep on going.

[laughter]

I don't know if we talked about this,

but I would like to touch on it, like what a normal birth is

and what a normal birth looks like.

There's such a wide range of what normal is.

You can think of a normal birth as like the train tracks

and then your birth experience as the train, alright?

And then sometimes, things happen.

We may have to switch tracks and go around or whatever,

and that's okay.

FELICIA: At first, when we did the birth plan, I was like,

"I'm just going to go to the hospital, you know, the normal thing."

And then we talk about, like, all the choices or the options,

and then I was like, "Maybe a birth center is better."

ASHLEE: We on track.

FELICIA: The main thing for me is I do not want to have a C-section.

Paul and I are entrepreneurs. We generate our own income.

I don't have a grandmother that can come stay with us.

We don't have the resources for a night nurse.

It says right here. PAUL: Okay.

FELICIA: Having a major surgery will impact

our success as a new family for the next 12 months.

PAUL: Hello?

GISELLE CHEBNY: Hi. ASHLEE: Hello.

GISELLE: Felicia? Nice to meet you.

PAUL: Nice to meet you. Paul.

GISELLE: Paul.

PAUL: Nice to meet you.

GISELLE: We've met before, haven't we?

ASHLEE: Yeah. Ashlee. PAUL: Okay.

GISELLE: Ashlee, okay.

Nice to meet you. ASHLEE: Yes.

GISELLE: Well, I'm going to give you guys your tour today.

I'm trying to talk about the risk versus benefits of hospital

versus birth center births, so--

ASHLEE: Perfect. GISELLE: Alright. Okay.

Well, let's go over this way.

We have three birth suites back here, and I'm going to show you the first one.

This is the Gavin suite.

When you come in in labor, you get your room,

um, we settle you in, check you in,

and then we just see what feels good to you.

Maybe you want to go for a walk down at the park.

Maybe you want to go to the Y and walk on the track.

Maybe you want to go to the mall and walk around.

Maybe you want to get in the tub for a little bit.

So it's really just up to you.

And we just go along with you and carry our Doppler

and monitor baby and make sure that you're doing okay,

and baby's doing okay while you work through your labor stuff.

So--

This is the Bella suite, a little bougie in here.

ASHLEE: A little bougie.

- Mom is like, yeah. That's my girl.

ASHLEE: There you go, Felicia.

- This is the room I designed.

FELICIA: Oh wow. - Yeah.

PAUL: It's pretty cool.

- You're taking it all in?

- I'm definitely taking it in.

I haven't even gotten in yet. Like--

This is crazy but amazing at the same time.

ASHLEE: Yeah. PAUL: I'm getting an understanding.

- I'm going to try to walk you through

some of our medical things that we have in place here.

My kids call this the scary cart.

We are certified nurse midwives here,

so we do follow the medical model

in that we have a suture kit for your bottom.

And I will tell you, we throw more of these away

because they expire than we use them.

And the reason for that is we give you

the most important gift as a first-time mom.

And that is time, time to be in labor, time to stretch.

But if we need to repair your bottom afterwards,

we can do that.

And then the medication box.

We don't do inductions of labor here,

but we do have Pitocin and a couple of other medications

that will help with hemorrhaging

if you were to hemorrhage after you delivered.

- Paul's been working a lot. I've been researching more.

Like, I'm really educating myself,

and I'm like, I'm just trying to have this baby safely.

- Let me just, let me break down

just a few of the statistics for you, okay.

So with birth centers, the C-section rate's about six percent.

In the hospital, the national average is around 30, 33 percent.

But we don't value a vaginal delivery in this setting

over your safety.

Okay.

I've had four C-sections.

Medically, I wasn't able to have a vaginal birth.

- I'm, like, totally aware

of how fortunate

we are to have this option this close to where we live.

I know people drive hours here too.

REGINA: I have one family come over

from almost four hours away in Arkansas.

They got an Airbnb and stayed

the last couple weeks of the pregnancy with their family

so that they could enjoy birth center care here.

- How did you, like, guys decide to open this?

Like, it's like against the system.

REGINA: Yeah.

It was incredibly difficult,

but this is a calling for us to do this.

GISELLE: The unfortunate thing is they will not, insurance-wise,

will not cover any of our care.

Uh, so it would be a sole out-of-pocket expense

for you to do that.

FELICIA: Okay.

GISELLE: Now, since you're coming to us late,

the total for us would be 3,000.

- That's not bad.

[Giselle laughs]

PAUL: I mean, I'm pretty much sold.

It's nothing I didn't really... see out of place

or anything like that.

FELICIA: I feel like switching over,

I don't really have to worry about anything.

Like, I'm more controlled on knowing what's going to happen

instead of whatever's going on in that hospital that day.

My grandmother had three children successfully.

My dad was the only one born in the hospital.

- I don't think it matters which one it is.

I'm going to be right there with you.

And I have nine nieces and nephews.

So I know about, like, children and birthing.

[laughs]

- Let me tell you, Mr. I Know Everything.

There's two things you don't know and you can't do.

- How to be a woman and how to have a baby.

[laughter]

Yeah. Yeah, you right.

- Midwives existed in all nations and cultures of the earth.

Midwives knew the feminine secrets.

Midwives were abortion practitioners

since the beginning of time,

helping women control their fertility

and control the use of their wombs.

That's a lot of power.

In spaces where women have power,

some men have a problem with it.

In Europe, the Catholic church wants more control

of childbearing women and their choices.

It's the church that first demands

that men be a part of childbirth.

Enter the male midwife,

who then later on segues and becomes the OB/GYN provider.

And priests, they're hearing these reports that women scream

and women yell and they become animalistic.

They, they become this other thing when they're in childbirth,

that has not been seen before by men.

We of course have the scripture in the Bible

and the Lord's prayer, deliver us from evil.

There becomes this identification

with being delivered from evil.

You start to see this language that women need to be delivered.

They need to be delivered.

And we've carried that into modern day.

When we get to United States history,

when enslaved people come here,

midwives come with them.

Midwives are on every plantation,

not just caring for enslaved Black people.

They were caring for everybody.

When the mistress of the plantation

and her daughters and white women are having babies,

they're being attended by Black midwives too.

Midwives become

some of the most valued enslaved persons.

George Washington himself actually paid his midwife.

She was so valuable because he wanted to make sure

that generations and generations of enslaved beings

made it earth-side safely.

After slavery, we still have community midwives.

Over time, these powerful white men,

this new thing called an OB/GYN physician decide

we are going to deem

that you should come to the hospital to give birth.

White male physicians and white public health nurses

bond together

and create a whole lot of marketing campaigns

that say Black midwives are dirty.

They're unskilled. They're untrained.

White public health nurses would actually run around

and hunt to find out where the midwives were,

forcing them to go to health departments and turn in their license,

saying to them, "If you catch another baby,

I'll report you, and you'll go to jail."

And midwifery becomes a book knowledge profession.

You become a nurse,

and then you take this extra training

to work in concert with the doctor.

It is not a profession that you grow into

through apprenticeship anymore.

So white women took over this profession.

Right now, 87 percent of all midwives

certified in the United States of America are white.

HELENA: Hi, Georgette, hi.

I'm very involved with students around the nation,

especially here in New York.

We need more midwives in the space.

Cecilia caught the twins,

NURSE: Oh my goodness.

- First twins, she caught.

The United States has to adopt the same modality

as all other countries, and midwives have to be central

to women's healthcare.

NURSE: Good night. HELENA: Alright. Night-night.

Midwifery care supports Black women

because when it's done well, it's anti-traumatic care.

It is a way to reconstruct the narrative

that childbirth does not have

to be this process that's laced

in abuse.

[sighs]

- Good job. - That felt good. Yeah.

WOMAN: Good job.

- Let's see if I can eat one more before one comes.

When the contraction comes, I don't want to eat

because I feel like I'm going to choke

trying to keep myself together.

[snoring]

[Felicia moans]

- What you smiling about?

[indiscernible mumbling]

PAUL: [indiscernible] take care of you while I'm asleep, huh?

[indiscernible dialogue]

WOMAN: 122 over 70.

Rocking it out, mama.

- Ohhh!

I think it's deeper now.

ASHLEE: Mm-hmm.

[moans]

[loud moan]

- You got it.

[chuckles]

[thumping]

- Is she okay?

WOMAN: She is just perfectly content.

- She's like right down here where my hand is.

FELICIA: Ohh.

- So, are we ready? Not yet.

[Felicia moans]

PAUL: Mmm.

[moaning continues]

[winces]

WOMAN: You're doing amazing.

You're almost there.

- It's the hardest thing I ever did.

Okay. Here comes one.

- You want the pillow?

WOMAN: You got this.

[moans] - Yeah? Yeah.

[moans]

PAUL: Mm-hmm.

WOMAN: There you go, there you go, there you go.

So good.

[exhales forcefully]

WOMAN: Breathe it out. Good.

- Take your time. GISELLE: Reach down.

Reach down. Open your eyes.

Want to reach down and help?

- No.

GISELLE: He can help.

- There we go.

[baby cries] [indiscernible chatter]

GISELLE: You did it. Woo! That's your baby.

WOMAN: Oh my god.

FELICIA: Hey, baby. WOMAN: Say hi, mommy.

FELICIA: Hi. Hey. Hey.

[indiscernible chatter]

PAUL: Hi. GISELLE: Hi, sweetheart.

WOMAN: You did it.

FELICIA: Baby, she's here.

PAUL: Yeah, she's here, baby.

WOMAN: You did it. FELICIA: Thank you.

[baby crying] - Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

- Don't cry.

I know, sweetheart.

Happy birthday.

There's your mama.

You are beautiful. All that hair.

I know.

I know.

- I can't believe this is real.

Thank you.

PAUL: She here, baby. She is here.

- She's here and beautiful.

[laughter]

- Oh my goodness.

Oh wow. This is the space

BRUCE: I'm excited.

NUBIA: Wow.

- So, we're thinking about making

the first two floors the birth center

and then the third floor,

the reception and a couple exam rooms

and a couple wellness spots.

And then in that corner,

that's going to be a small community room

where we can have, um, smaller classes happen.

BRUCE: We're going to bring a birthing center over here to the Bronx.

We need it. We have the highest Cesarean rate in this borough.

- It's pretty big.

WOMAN: Ready?

Action.

- We are partnering up to bring a birthing center to the Bronx,

to serve our community, to serve our people.

We need to stop working for a system that is not going to work for us.

And we need to take care of our communities.

We need to step up.

- Within the entire state of more than 19 million people,

there are only three birth centers.

This needs to change.

Birthing centers are a happy medium of a hospital birth,

a very necessary option, and home birth,

which is a wonderful option, but not for everybody.

- Even if you can't donate,

figure out what you can do to play your part to help us.

MYLA/NUBIA: Thank you. - We deserve a birthing center.

- We deserve a birthing center. - We deserve birth centers.

BRUCE: Yes. - Yes.

MYLA: Yes. NUBIA: Yes.

BRUCE: Hello? NEEL: Hey.

How are you, man? BRUCE: Doing well, doing well, Neel.

How are you? NEEL: It's good to see you.

BRUCE: Good to see you.

NEEL: How was the trip? BRUCE: Oh, brother.

It was, it wasn't bad. It wasn't bad.

- We so appreciate you, um, coming up

and then spend time with our students today.

- Definitely.

- I couldn't imagine when we talked last year that we'd be here.

- Yeah.

- Doing this. - Me neither.

I was just thinking about that, like how surreal it is.

You know, that's just what moving forward does, you know.

You just got to keep pushing forward, and doors open up.

- Yeah.

♪

♪

♪

BRUCE: Amber Rose Isaac was the love of my life.

She passed away due to an unscheduled emergency C-section

that stemmed from medical negligence throughout her entire pregnancy.

After finding out all this information and doing so much studying,

I found out that Amber was as good as dead

as soon as she walked into that hospital.

So we need to make sure that this doesn't happen to anyone else.

In 2018, I watched Amber--

NEEL: What people like Bruce have taught me

is that affirming a person's dignity,

seeing them, hearing them is the way that you make them safe.

It's not a luxury.

STUDENT 1: Thank you so much.

I actually remember being on Twitter,

hearing about Amber Rose.

And so it is so surreal to me right now

to be sitting next to you, to hear you tell your story,

to capture the things that

a news article will never be able to capture.

This fight is not over.

And there are times, because this is,

it feels like it's so in my face,

because this is the work that I'm interested,

"Oh, enough people know about this."

But it's not enough, right?

Because too many people are still dying from this.

Right? There will still be another, which is one too many already.

- As a white provider, I'm going to have a blind spot

that is, I don't have any lived experience

with racism in this way.

And it's really, really easy to become part of the problem

if you're not actively working towards understanding

these types of stories.

STUDENT 3: I know you say that this shouldn't ever happen again,

but the fact is it will.

Um, and so I think it's important to have spaces of activism

and healing to be prepared for that.

- You know, we're not going to be able to save everyone,

but with Black lives, Black women,

it's believed that over 60 percent of these deaths were preventable.

That's more than half we're talking about.

That sounds like a choice to me.

That sounds like a system.

And if you're here today,

that shows me that you want to reimagine the system.

So I appreciate everyone being here.

- Alright.

I'm down here in Houston to meet a father

I've never met before.

But who I am definitely connected to.

After I created a piece for Amber,

I created a piece for another woman,

and it just started to become like, um,

what I was doing.

♪

Creating pieces for other families

who have lost their daughters,

their mothers, their partners.

To keep their stories going.

I've started to meet more families than I ever could have imagined,

all over the country,

and build a community that is needed.

What's good, bro?

Man, I'm happy to be out here, man.

SAM VOLRIE JR.: Yeah. - Good to see you.

SAM: After Maria had the baby in the hospital,

they came and told us, hey, we had to, you know,

it's time to go, you know, time to check out.

But, you know, uh,

she's not even able to walk.

Maybe we can, you know, extend this somehow, whatever, you know?

Can she get more help?

But, you know, when the insurance don't, don't pay for it--

They don't care about you that much.

- Somebody hit me up on IG,

and they told me, you know, about you and your story

and, you know, Maria.

I felt compelled, like I got to speak to you

to let you know, like, you know, like,

I don't know you, you know,

but I know how you feel, man.

Like, I know what you're going through.

I know, I know the pain. I know what it is.

SAM: Mm-hmm.

With that said, I want to give you this.

I'm so happy, man, that I was able to come out here

and, and give it to you first hand.

[indiscernible]

SAM: Oh, man.

- I know that Shamony and Maria are up there wherever they are.

They're probably in the room right now with us, honestly.

But, you know, they connecting.

You know, they making stuff happen for both of us, man.

[sniffles]

OMARI: Small, something small I could do, man.

It's the very least I could do for you, bro.

Appreciate you, man. - I appreciate this, bro.

OMARI: No doubt. No doubt.

- Yeah. It's dope.

[indiscernible chatter]

OMARI: So, on the count of three,

we going to get this started.

One, two, three.

ALL: ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday, dear Khari ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

WOMAN: Alright.

[all cheering]

SHAWNEE: Here, wait a minute. Who wants some?

Um, Charles? Open your mouth, Charles. GIRL: That-that-that's okay.

SHAWNEE: Bruce? Where's Elias?

Let him open his mouth.

OMARI: Now, I want to say thank y'all.

I love y'all. We love y'all.

This is a very--

It's been a very emotionally driven

and a very emotional rollercoaster for me,

especially this last couple of hours,

but, you know, specifically these last couple of days.

And, um, I didn't know how I was going to get through it.

And the anxiety of me thinking about trying to get through it by myself

is... it's enough to kill somebody, you know.

But the fact that I have all of you as support,

it makes it so much easier to put and keep a smile on my face, man.

So, thank y'all again. I love y'all. We love y'all.

MAN: [on computer] Take care.

WOMAN: Bye. - Peace

[laughter]

Ahhh, ya got me!

- Let's do our little ritual.

[indiscernible]

Now I'm starting to feel the butterflies.

Let your hands be the hands.

- Ase. - Mm-hmm.

- This one is purity.

Your mantra. SHAWNEE: Yeah.

- I act from pure intentions.

- Yes.

So, for today, it's not about me.

So I'm going to... I'm getting so emotional.

- That's okay.

- Just moving myself out of the way

so Shamony can speak through me

so that women can live. So--

And then anybody that does not know about this, um, epidemic,

not the pandemic,

but the epidemic of maternal mortality and morbidity

will be, um, able to receive that and walk away with knowledge

and then also prayerfully some action.

You ready? JASMINE: Mm-hmm.

- Alright, here we go.

MAN: How are you? SHAWNEE: I'm good.

JASMINE: Pretty good this morning.

[inaudible]

MAN: Our next speaker

is a licensed clinician, author, healer,

spiritual leader, and a reproductive justice advocate and activist.

Shawnee Benton-Gibson.

[cheering and applause]

- Black lives matter,

but Black wombs create Black lives.

And when we forget that, we forget our humanity.

We want to make sure that our grandbabies,

our children have mothers to raise them.

And that fathers are not left to figure it out on their own.

We must stop this.

Black lives matter because Black wombs matter.

Black lives matter because Black wombs matter.

Black lives matter because Black wombs matter,

and a Black womb created you.

[cheering and applause]

I want white supremacy to get off the necks

of women and their wombs.

This momentum is like a wave.

We keep showing up. We're not letting the pain stop us.

We are holding people who have the most power accountable

for how they use it.

OMARI: Our maternal health community

is really pushing for change on Capitol Hill,

trying to bring about different legislation

in order to make sure that women have

the care that they're supposed to.

- I can't let Amber be another statistic.

I'm making people aware

of what's going on in these systems.

I planned on spending a lifetime with Amber.

I wanted to give her my life.

This way, I'm still going to.

Amber Rose Isaac. We hear you, we see you.

Shamony Gibson. We hear you, we see you.

Kira Johnson,

we hear you, we see you.

NEWSREADER: We're taking a closer look

at the maternal mortality rate in the United States.

- This issue of maternal health--

- I introduced a bill called

the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act.

It's 12 bills

to end our nation's maternal mortality crisis.

- All those families who have been impacted,

who even in the face of their trauma

and their devastating losses

continue to amplify their voices,

that is really why this work is happening today.

- Our healthcare system including reproductive healthcare

was built on a legacy of systemic racism,

and that legacy continues today.

- Madam Chairwoman, as we approach Mother's Day,

my heart is heavy

as I sit here representing

the thousands upon thousands of families that have been impacted.

[sighs]

These are my sons, Charles and Langston.

My wife Kira won't wake up to breakfast in bed this Mother's Day

because she gave birth... in a country

that didn't see her, that didn't value her.

We must do better.

This is Amber Rose Isaac.

Her son Elias

won't have the chance to spend his first Mother's Day

with his mother.

Elias deserved better.

Shamony Gibson

should be here with her son, Khari,

and her daughter, Anari.

She deserved so much better.

This is a human rights issue.

It should be a fundamental human right

to deliver a healthy child in this country

and live to raise that child.

That's my hope.

♪

♪

♪

SHAWNEE: Greetings, family.

The reason why we are gathered here today

is because Shamony Makeba Gibson lived.

Gone too soon,

like a comet blazing across the evening sky.

Gone too soon,

like a rainbow fading in the twinkling of an eye.

Gone too soon,

shiny and sparkly and splendidly bright,

here one day and gone one night.

Like a castle built upon a sandy beach,

gone too soon.

Like a perfect flower that is just beyond your reach,

ANARI: That's my mommy.

SHAWNEE: gone too soon.

Shamony Makeba Gibson,

we will never, ever forget you.

Amen.

♪

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♪

♪

♪

♪ I love it here ♪

♪ 'Cause I don't have to explain to them ♪

♪ Why I'm beautiful ♪

♪ 'Cause I am beautiful ♪

♪ Back home, they're scared ♪

♪ Oh, so scared of me ♪

♪ That I became scared of me ♪

♪ I've become scared of me ♪

♪ The way you smile ♪

♪ When you believe in your future is different ♪

♪ Is different ♪

♪ The way you smile ♪

♪ When you believe in your future is different ♪

♪ Is different ♪

♪ Now we moving forward ever ♪

♪ Backwards never ♪

♪ Forward ever ♪

♪ Backwards never ♪

♪ When the going gets rough ♪

♪ And life gets tough ♪

♪ Don't forget to breathe ♪

♪ I love it here ♪

♪ 'Cause I don't have to explain to them ♪

♪ Why I'm valuable ♪

♪ That I'm magical ♪

♪ And back home, they tear ♪

♪ Tear my soul apart ♪

♪ Love my broken heart ♪

♪ I don't know where to start ♪

♪ The way you smile ♪

♪ When you believe in your future is different ♪

♪ Is different ♪

♪ Now we moving forward ever ♪

♪ Backwards never ♪

♪ Forward ever ♪

♪ Backwards never ♪

♪ And when the going gets rough ♪

♪ And life gets tough ♪

♪ Don't forget to breathe ♪

♪ Now we moving forward ever ♪

♪ Backwards never ♪

♪ Forward ever ♪

♪ Backwards never ♪

♪ And when the going gets rough ♪

♪ And life gets tough ♪

♪ Don't forget to breathe ♪