Elaine Welteroth: "What's Broken About Birth in America, is That it's Treated as a Business" | THR Video - video Dailymotion

The Hollywood Reporter

Elaine Welteroth speaks at the second annual Social Impact Summit, hosted by the Social Impact Fund and The Hollywood Reporter. She breaks down how America is one of the deadliest places to give birth in all the high-income countries, how we have normalized traumatic birth and what people can do to fix the problem and save lives.

Transcript

00:00All right, here we go. Hello, everyone. Okay, how good does it feel to be surrounded by

00:10like-minded community in a moment like this? I just want to take a moment to thank everyone

00:16for being here. I don't know about you, but I needed this. All right, so let's kick off.

00:22How many parents do we have in the room? You guys deserve a round of applause. We are doing

00:28the hardest job in the world, especially right now. All right, now parents or not, how many of you

00:33by a show of hands knew that America is the deadliest place to give birth in all of the high

00:41income countries across the world? You guys are a smart group. Most people don't. And it's not just

00:50by a little. It's actually by 10 times. I know I'm jumping right in with the depressing stats,

00:56but they gave me five minutes, so we're diving right into the deep end. Come with me.

01:01Now, how many of you all knew that midwives could actually avert 80% of maternal deaths?

01:08Let that sink in. 80%. Now, midwifery care is actually the default birth care model in every

01:17other high-income country across the world. But here in America, most insurances do not cover it.

01:25Now, it's not a coincidence that most of us didn't know this. It's actually by design.

01:32Before I became a mother, I'd heard whispers of the maternal mortality crisis. And as a journalist,

01:39I'd read the data. 50% of mothers describe their births as traumatic. Black women are dying at three

01:46to four times the rates of white women during and after childbirth. But somehow, the conversation

01:53always stops at the problem. Instead of rallying resources around solutions, known solutions like

02:02midwifery care. Much like the women's health issues broadly, maternal health has been falsely framed as

02:11a fringe issue. Something that's left to somebody else to fix. Despite the fact that everyone on the

02:19planet and everyone in this room came from a woman's womb, right or wrong, it's a crisis that's painted

02:27in statistics that are too heavy for some, too sterile for others to actually feel until it becomes your

02:37issue. When I became pregnant, I thought, how hard could this be? I did what most Americans do. I looked

02:45for a good OB. And even as someone who had access to the best, I dated eight different doctors. And yes,

02:52I call it dated because you need to know who's going to be there during your most vulnerable

02:56experience in your life. Except the problem is I was having terrible experience after terrible

03:01experience, including one who told me that I had exceeded her two to three question max before she

03:07escorted me out of her office. And that's the moment when I realized just how broken the system is.

03:17Now, what's broken about birth in America is that it's treated like a business. One that prioritizes

03:25profits over people. It thrives on our lack of knowledge and it incentivizes unnecessary medical

03:33intervention and it leaves families and women feeling powerless over the very thing our bodies were built

03:41to do. Meanwhile, midwives and community-based providers and birth workers who save lives are

03:51underfunded and ignored. Thankfully, in my third trimester, y'all, I was finally introduced to

04:00the midwifery model of care. A model that centers humanity, dignity, education, and choice. And it

04:09changed everything. It actually changed my life. It gave me a safe, sacred, and transformative birth

04:17experience. And I got to tell you of all of my career accomplishments and all the titles that I have held,

04:24pushing out a nine-pound baby in my home, unmedicated, was the most badass thing I've ever done and the most

04:34empowered I have ever felt in my life. Thank you. Add that to my resume. But then came the grief.

04:46Why did I only find out about this care through chance? Through a whisper network? Why isn't this

04:54the norm for low-risk pregnancies? Especially when midwifery has been proven to be safe, more affordable

05:03in some cases, and a lot of times much more humane. And most of all, why with all of our medical advances

05:12and our access to technology breakthroughs are so many women still dying in childbirth in one of the

05:19richest countries in the world, when 80% of maternal deaths are preventable. Make it make sense, y'all.

05:28The math isn't math-y. So I put on my journalist hat, and I dug deeper to find answers. And one thing

05:35became clear. This is not just a public health crisis. This is a storytelling crisis. We have

05:43normalized traumatic birth. We have stigmatized midwifery and care models that are saving us.

05:53We've let profit-driven systems dictate outcomes that should be rooted in dignity. And we've let the

06:00story stop at the fear instead of the fix. So I decided to start somewhere with what I had.

06:10On my birthday in December 2023, I launched an Instagram fundraiser, just hoping to cover the

06:17cost of one family in my neighborhood. And in 16 hours, we raised enough to fund two families' births.

06:24From that small seed, Birth Fund was born. With my background in storytelling and brand building,

06:32I knew we could scale this. Because one thing is for sure, there is nothing a pissed-off mama cannot do,

06:40okay? Now, Birth Fund is one year old, by the way. We just celebrated our first year,

06:47first anniversary. And now Birth Fund is a non-profit organization investing in midwifery care for

06:54families all across the country who couldn't otherwise afford it. We're working to mainstream

06:59midwifery through storytelling in order to help make this gold standard care accessible, covered,

07:06and celebrated. But I couldn't have built this alone. I called on my network, public figures,

07:12executives, journalists, moms like Serena Williams. You may have heard of her. Carly Kloss, Chrissy Teigen,

07:20and yes, dads like John Legend, who's here today, and Alexis Ohanian, who joined our very first

07:29funding circle to help solve this crisis one family at a time. Then came the brands, SoFi,

07:36Road, Mac, Pampers, Babyless, and so many more. And then we have institutional support.

07:42From the Gates Foundation and Pivotal Ventures, shout out to Allison Felix, who you'll hear from in a

07:48second, who leveraged her fund to invest in this work. And one year later, we've raised over three

07:56million dollars to support families and midwives all across the country. Thank you. And we're just

08:03getting started. Together, we are rewriting the story, one birth at a time, one family at a time,

08:12because a mother's life should never be the cost of bringing new life into this world. Thank you so much.

Elaine Welteroth: "What's Broken About Birth in America, is That it's Treated as a Business" | THR Video

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