Why She Counts

CRUSADER, mother, FIGHTER, philanthropist, activist, icon, SUPERMODEL, shero, GAME CHANGER, THINKER, doer, wife, SISTER, daughter, ENTREPRENEUR, muse

- Supriya Dravid

Christy Turlington Burns is one of those rare visionaries whose humility and hard work makes space for new possibilities. The iconic supermodel became a champion maternal health advocate when she suffered a near-fatal postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) after giving birth to her daughter Grace, in 2003. She founded Every Mother Counts (EMC), a non-profit organisation that aims to make pregnancy and childbirth safe at a global level. EMC aims to engage, educate and empower women through community led maternal health programmes around the world. I chat with her on the importance of providing the continuum of care, mobilising funds to raise awareness, the power of a community and relevance of faith in today’s world. Excerpts from our conversation:

Supriya Dravid: I went through PPH after I had my daughter. Everything was great until just after her birth. I was in the recovery room when I started bleeding. But while the nurses understood what was going on, the resident doctor dismissed it. Nobody wanted to admit that the doctors had ignored all the signs. I got better about three days later. But the point was that this wasn’t supposed to happen. In small towns across India, the nurses and the midwives are trained to tackle this. But this was in Delhi, the capital, with good medical facilities and trained doctors, who missed it. I guess this is why I have great admiration for Serena Williams, who went through PPH and came back to play a Grand Slam, and you, for using your personal experience to create a dialogue around this across the world.