For Eiselt and Lee, showing how peaceful childbirth can be when black women are respected and empowered to control their experience is an essential part of revealing why America’s medical system is failing so many of them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2020 (the most recent year for which this data is available) the maternal mortality rate per 100,000 births was 55.3 for black women, 19.1 for white women, and 18. 2 for Hispanic women. Eiselt and Lee acknowledge how painful these statistics are. In fact, those numbers are part of the reason he chose to tackle this issue. “Maternal health is something that is very close to me, as a mother and as an artist,” Eiselt explained to Salon in a recent interview. The mother of four recalled her own traumatic, adverse pregnancy and childbirth experiences, while also recognizing the difference between the level of care she received compared to that of women like 30-year-old Shamony Gibson, who died in 2019 after giving birth to her son. and 26-year-old Amber Rose Isaac, who died in 2020 after an emergency C-section that her family insists was the result of medical negligence. The United States is the most dangerous country in the industrialized world to give birth, Eiselt said. Working with Lee, who served as a spokesperson for the Office of Minority Health’s 2007 Infant Mortality Awareness Campaign, Eiselt’s goal was to create moving portraits from these stories. Through “Aftershock,” we follow Shamony’s mother, Shawnee Benton Gibson, her grieving partner, Omari Maynard, and Amber’s surviving partner, Bruce McIntyre, as they transform the pain of their loss into activism. The documentary shows how much work is still ahead of us to reduce the black maternal mortality rate and prevent other families from suffering such a terrible loss, while identifying the failures of the medical profession with a look at history, but as explained by Eiselt and Lee, there is reason to hope, as long as women can exercise their right to choose how and when to give birth. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Before you made the documentary, just in terms of approaching the subjects, what were the things that you knew specifically that you wanted to do or the subjects that you had to cover? Paula Eiselt: First and foremost, people make the stories. There are great articles, but articles are not movies. And it was really important to find those protagonists who . . . viewers will relate to. So when Tonya and I sat down, we decided first and foremost, that this has to be a human story. This isn’t going to be a stat-driven story, although we have plenty of those. But all this lies beneath the stories of the people. So we were very clear that we wanted minimal experts. Dr. Neil Shah and Elena Grant became the experts on the scenery. But they are also characters in the film. And of course, from day one, the basis of this film was always going to be the work of black women. That was very clear. There is no way to tell the story of America’s maternal mortality crisis, which affects all women, without the institution of the Black Women’s Center. There really is no other way to do it. So we were both very clear on that. Tonya Lewis Lee: I think Paula and I also had conversations very early on about who would be behind the camera, who would be around when we went to the movies. For example, for the men’s circle, we knew we wanted a black male DP in that room. We were very sensitive to that, even thinking about, you know, who’s on our crew? What do they look like? What is their sensitivity level? Who will work with these families? “Fathers are the ones who are left behind and have to pick up the pieces.” And Paula and I had many real conversations. This is a race issue, Paula is not a black woman. And it was very important to be able to be open to those conversations. They are not always easy. But the best work is when you can have open and honest conversations about race, because it’s sensitive. How – when talking to Shawnee, Bruce and Omari – do we show understanding? And by the way, I will tell you that Shawnee herself is very direct. She’ll tell you how she feels, how she thinks, and she’s also been very critical about talking about racial issues very openly with all of us. And so I think that’s what made us able to make the movie in . . . the tenor and tone we did. Shawnee Benton Gibson and Omari Maynard in “Aftershock” (Hulu/Onyx Collective) A few things about “Aftershock” stood out to me. One of them is that when we think about maternal health, regardless of race, we think about it in a way that usually focuses only on those who give birth. What this film does that is really important is show the partners, men and partners, that are left behind when the birth parent dies. Tonya, you mentioned that a little bit when you were talking about going into these rooms and talking to men who have lost their wives and their partners. Was that a direction you predicted the documentary would take? Lee: As we talked about the first event we shot, Aftershock, the call to action that Shawnee did, was really a celebration of Shamony’s life. At that event, they also held the men’s circle run by Omari. This was the pivotal moment for us as filmmakers to understand the impact these women’s deaths have on men. So we followed Omari. And by the way, they are the ones left behind. I think people often think of maternal health as a women’s issue, but it’s really a family issue. It’s a community thing. And so we started following Omari as he tries to pick up the pieces of his life, continuing to work, raising his kids without Shamony there, and then Omari just being who he is, and reaching out to other fathers who have experienced loss, helped direct us to Bruce. It was really, really organic. But you know, when you look back, of course it makes sense. Fathers are the ones who are left behind and have to pick up the pieces. There is so much discussion in the film about the practices of the medical industry around gynecology and obstetrics – and how it has been removed from traditional obstetrics and how black women have been disconnected from that process. I think about the wonderful yet very remarkable distinction between the birthing center and going to the hospital in Tulsa and seeing this sign that says, “We’re Team Birth” . . . and they are all white women. Was that an aspect of maternal health cases that you see differently now after this production compared to when each of you were going through your own birth experiences? Eiselt: Just to briefly touch on the history that we’re showing, of what happened to enslaved black women in terms of experimentation, and then what happened in the 19th century, with the stigmatization of midwives and, really, the white men who took that on. profession, which has launched this whole crisis. This is just part of the same story of women, especially black women losing their autonomy in every way and having this profession stolen from them. This is nothing new. This is not some anti-medical, anti-technology point of view. The countries with the best [maternal health] rates have midwives, because they provide the best results. This is science. These are facts. So, I think knowing that history, we always wanted it to be there. And knowing the US system, the maternal health system, and what it lacks, was something very important to show. My experiences in the hospital, I have experienced every type of birth. I had a caesarean section, birth without medication, epidural delivery. I have seen the way the system works. And then choosing to midwife with my fourth child, it wasn’t perfect, but it’s a very different experience. So taking all that knowledge of how I know this system works from the inside, knowing what wasn’t there, that was something we wanted to show. “The countries with the best [maternal health] rates have midwives, because they provide the best results. This is science. These are facts. “ Felicia, the woman who has this amazing birth in the center, this is something that was not planned. When we started following Felicia, she was about to give birth in one of those hospitals you see in Tulsa. It even had a very good relationship with its providers. But in the end, she chose a birthing center. And actually, the doctor she was going to use was a Black man, a wonderful doctor. But she chose the woman’s place. She felt that for her, and for the birth she wanted, and the empowerment she wanted, this was the place to go. We were able to spin the story right away. Lee: For me, when I had my kids 27, 25 years ago, I had hospital births. I hadn’t even considered midwifery, really. The campaign that was run against midwives did a great job and it did a very good job for me. But I will say, as we started to do the research and learn and discover, I remember an early article I read about how George Washington paid his enslaved midwife because she was so valuable to the plantation. That was such an a-ha moment for me personally, because it was like, Oh. So the midwife on the plantation, giving birth to the…
