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
02:37your issue. When I became pregnant, I thought, how hard could this be? I did what most Americans do.
02:44I looked for a good OB. And even as someone who had access to the best, I dated eight different
02:51doctors. And yes, I call it dated because you need to know who's going to be there during your most
02:56vulnerable experience in your life. Except the problem is I was having terrible experience after
03:01terrible experience, including one who told me that I had exceeded her two to three question max
03:06before she escorted me out of her office. And that's the moment when I realized just how broken the
03:15system is. Now, what's broken about birth in America is that it's treated like a business.
03:23One that prioritizes profits over people. It thrives on our lack of knowledge and it incentivizes
03:31unnecessary medical intervention. And it leaves families and women feeling powerless over the
03:39very thing our bodies were built to do. Meanwhile, midwives and community-based providers and birth
03:48workers who save lives are underfunded and ignored. Thankfully, in my third trimester, y'all,
03:57I was finally introduced to the midwifery model of care. A model that centers humanity,
04:05dignity, education, and choice. And it changed everything. It actually changed my life. It gave me
04:14a safe, sacred, and transformative birth experience. And I got to tell you of all of my career accomplishments
04:22and all the titles that I have held. Pushing out a nine-pound baby in my home unmedicated was the
04:32most badass thing I've ever done and the most empowered I have ever felt in my life.
04:41Thank you. Add that to my resume.
04:43But then came the grief. Why did I only find out about this care through chance? Through a whisper
04:52network? Why isn't this the norm for low-risk pregnancies? Especially when midwifery has been
05:00proven to be safe, more affordable in some cases, and a lot of times much more humane.
05:07And most of all, why, with all of our medical advances and our access to technology breakthroughs,
05:14are so many women still dying in childbirth in one of the richest countries in the world?
05:21When 80% of maternal deaths are preventable. Make it make sense, y'all. The math isn't math-y.
05:30So I put on my journalist hat and I dug deeper to find answers. And one thing became clear.
05:37This is not just a public health crisis. This is a storytelling crisis. We have normalized traumatic
05:45birth. We have stigmatized midwifery and care models that are saving us. We've let profit-driven
05:54systems dictate outcomes that should be rooted in dignity. And we've let the story stop at the fear
06:02instead of the fix. So I decided to start somewhere with what I had. On my birthday in December 2023,
06:13I launched an Instagram fundraiser just hoping to cover the cost of one family in my neighborhood.
06:19And in 16 hours, we raised enough to fund two families' births. From that small seed,
06:27Birth Fund was born. With my background in storytelling and brand building, I knew we could
06:33scale this. Because one thing is for sure, there is nothing a pissed-off mama cannot do, okay?
06:40Now, Birth Fund is one year old, by the way. We just celebrated our first year, first anniversary.
06:49And now, Birth Fund is a nonprofit organization investing in midwifery care for families all
06:55across the country who couldn't otherwise afford it. We're working to mainstream midwifery through
07:01storytelling in order to help make this gold standard care accessible, covered, and celebrated.
07:06But I couldn't have built this alone. I called on my network, public figures, executives, journalists,
07:14moms like Serena Williams, may have heard of her, Carly Kloss, Chrissy Teigen, and yes, dads like John
07:24Legend, who's here today, and Alexis Ohanian, who joined our very first funding circle to help solve
07:30this crisis one family at a time. Then came the brands, SoFi, Road, Mac, Pampers, BabyList,
07:39and so many more. And then we have institutional support from the Gates Foundation and Pivotal Ventures.
07:46Shout out to Allison Felix, who you'll hear from in a second, who leveraged her fund to invest in this
07:52work. And one year later, we've raised over $3 million to support families and midwives all across
07:59the country. Thank you. And we're just getting started. Together, we are rewriting the story one
08:09birth at a time, one family at a time, because a mother's life should never be the cost of bringing
08:17new life into this world. Thank you so much.
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