Jodie Turner-Smith Said She Gave Birth at Home Because of Systemic Racism

 

Actress Jodie Turner-Smith has opened up about why she chose to have her baby at home.

The actress who recently welcomed her first child with husband Joshua Jackson spoke about this in an essay for British Vogue‘s September issue, in which she said that the decision to have an at-home birth was largely due to systemic racism and the pregnancy-related mortality rates among Black women.

“We had already decided on a home birth, because of concerns about negative birth outcomes for Black women in America — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the risk of pregnancy-related deaths is more than three times greater for Black women than for white women, pointing, it seems to me, to systemic racism,” she said, per the excerpt published by People magazine.

The Queen & Slim star continued, “We never imagined that in the coming weeks, hospitals around the country would begin restricting who could be present in the birthing rooms, forcing mothers to deliver without the support person or people of their choice. Delivering at home ensured that I had what every single woman deserves to have: full agency in determining my birth support.”

She then thanked her husband for his support, noting that he stood with her while she spent nearly four days in labor.

“It made me realize how lucky and privileged I am to have a partner willing to follow me around the world, supporting me while I did my job,” Turner-Smith added. “Both of us had watched our own mothers struggle to raise children without such support. Both of us were determined to create something for ourselves,” she said of Jackson. “He kept saying to me, ‘There’s no part of this that I’m going to miss.'”