Turlington Burns Aims to Improve Maternal Health

Former supermodel Christy Turlington Burns says statistics on maternal mortality in the U.S. are “quite shocking,” but she’s hopeful new legislation will improve the situation.

Turlington Burns has become an advocate for better global maternal health care in recent years after a complication with the delivery of her first child prompted her to explore the cause and make the documentary “No Woman, No Cry.”

The film follows at-risk pregnant women in several parts of the world, including the U.S., where — according to the documentary — two women die each day from a pregnancy-related complication, and one in five women of reproductive age has no health insurance.

Turlington Burns, who’s also spearheading the Every Mother Counts campaign, says she’s hopeful the Maternal Health Accountability Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives last month by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan will improve the situation.

“That has the potential to, I think, make a big difference,” she said Friday in an interview before the Canadian public premiere of the doc, which marks her directorial debut, at Bell Lightbox.

“In the United States, it’s such an enormous country, as is Canada, and it’s very hard to collect data and consolidate data so that people really understand how deaths are happening and why they’re happening and really understand what’s happening, state-by-state review boards and whatnot. So it has the promise to do that,” she said.

“I think once we have more of a sense of what’s happening across the country, we’ll have a better chance at making some solutions.”

Shot over a period of two years starting in 2008, No Woman, No Cry is visually stunning as it travels to several parts of the world, including Tanzania, where a pregnant woman in a remote tribe must walk eight kilometres to get to the nearest clinic.

Cameras also travelled to Guatemala, the U.S., and a slum in Bangladesh, where stigma surrounding hospital deliveries prevents many women from seeking professional maternal care.

“World-wide, over half a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth every year, and 90 per cent of those deaths are preventable,” says the film.

Turlington Burns says the impetus for the doc — which will air on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network in Canada on May 22 — was the postpartum hemorrhage she experienced right after the birth of her first child in October 2003.

“The complication that I endured was the leading cause and is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide, and learning that information made me want to know more about what were the barriers to care, why were women dying still in pregnancy in 2010,” said the 42-year-old California native, who is married to actor-screenwriter Ed Burns and gave birth to her second child in 2006.

Turlington Burns is working on her master’s degree on public health at Columbia University. She was brought into Toronto by Grand Challenges Canada, a new, federally-funded, not-for-profit global health organization that addresses women and children’s health issues in the developing world. It’s also partnered with a few other groups, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, on an initiative called Saving Lives at Birth, which is focused on finding ways to save lives in the 72-hour window after a woman has given birth.

Dr. Peter Singer, the CEO of Grand Challenges Canada, says he was “flabbergasted” when he first learned that most maternal deaths happen in just a very narrow window after delivery.

Turlington Burns says the group’s focus on the risks women face right after birth touched her because that’s the time frame in which her life was at risk.

“Had I gone home and the hemorrhage not presented itself until I was home and maybe didn’t understand what was happening, I may not have sought care as timely as I should have, which would’ve been the critical piece in saving my life,” she said.

And just how does Canada shape up against the U.S. when it comes to maternal mortality?

“We almost have half the rate as in the U.S. That means we’re almost twice as good,” said Singer.

To watch the video interview of Christy, click here.