Actress Jodie Turner-Smith revealed that she made the decision to have a home birth for a variety of reasons. And it was also her way of having a normal birth experience being a critically-acclaimed actress and all.
Not only was she just coming off a string of red carpet appearances and movie premieres but Jodie was also preparing to give birth during COVID-19. As she tells Vogue, “every stage of my pregnancy brought its own challenges and lessons.”
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Jodie Turner-Smith Reveals Why She Gave Birth At Home
“Nobody really teaches you about what your body goes through to bring a child into the world until you’re actually doing it,” Jodie explained before talking about the added dangers of being an African American pregnant woman.
“We had already decided on a home birth because of concerns about negative birth outcomes for black women in America. According to the [CDC], 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.”
As she continued, knowing the added risks of giving birth in a hospital and the restrictions being imposed on expectant mothers during COVID-19, “delivering at home ensured that I had what every single woman deserves to have: full agency in determining my birth support.”
And her husband, actor Joshua Jackson completely understood and respected his wife’s birth plan. “Both of us had watched our own mothers struggle to raise children without such support. Both of us were determined to create something different for ourselves. He kept saying to me, ‘There’s no part of this that I’m going to miss.’ And there wasn’t.”
However, as Jodie told Vogue, her pregnancy was not easy. Nonetheless, the new mom couldn’t be more excited to have a little girl to raise into a strong and independent woman. With that said, she does worry about how she will explain the current events to her little one when she’s old enough to understand.
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“Sometimes I wonder how I will explain to my daughter what it meant to be born in the year 2020. The historic events, the social unrest, and me – a new mother just trying to do her best. I think I will tell her that it was as if the world had paused for her to be born. And that, hopefully, it never quite returned to the way it was before.” And that’s all you can do as a loving mother who just wants the best for her children.
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