Photo: Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty
In an essay forTime, Felix, 37, recalled her own story about her pre-term birth of daughter Camryn, now 4, in which Felix was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a precursor of one of the complications from which Bowie died — eclampsia — according to her autopsy.
“I was unsure if I was going to make it,” Felix wrote. “If I was ever going to hold my precious daughter.”
She added, “Like so many Black women, I was unaware of the risks I faced while pregnant.”
Felix went on to share that during a Thanksgiving meal, weeks before her delivery, her feet were swollen, but that she nor any other members of her family thought anything of it.
“Not once did someone say, ‘Oh, well, that’s one of the indicators of preeclampsia.’ None of us knew,” she wrote. “When I became pregnant, my doctor didn’t sit me down and tell me, ‘These are things that you should look for in your pregnancy, because you are at a greater risk to experience these complications.’”
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Felix added that whileSerena Williamshad “near-death complications,” andBeyoncésuffered from preeclampsia too, more awareness needs to be raised about the fact that Black women are nearly three times more likely to die than their White counterparts while pregnant.
“I hate that it takes Tori’s situation to put this back on the map and to get people to pay attention to it,” she wrote. “But oftentimes, we need that wake-up call.”
Felix’s story comes on the heels of a similar account from another teammate, Tianna Madison, whoshared on InstagramTuesday that she also went into labor early.
“THREE (3) of the FOUR (4) of us who ran on the SECOND fastest 4x100m relay of all time, the 2016 Olympic Champions have nearly died or died in childbirth,” Madison — who competed with her then-married name Bartoletta — wrote in a lengthy caption alongside a photo of Felix, Bowie and English Gardner celebrating their win in Rio de Janeiro.
She continued, “In fact, even though I went into labor at 26 weeks we went to the hospital with my medical advance directive AND my will,” she wrote about her November 2021 delivery, where she went on to give birth to her son Kai.
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From Felix’s perspective, it all amounts to what she calls a “Black Maternal Health Crisis.”
“I would love to have another child. That’s something that I know for sure,” she wrote. “But will I be here to raise that child? That’s a very real concern. And that’s a terrifying thing. This is America, in 2023, and Black women are dying while giving birth. It’s absurd.”
She concluded, “I’m hopeful that things can get better. I’m hopeful that Tori, who stood on the podium at Rio, gold around her neck and sweetness in her soul, won’t die in vain.”
source: people.com
