While the pervasive and rising issues of Black maternal health and mortality grow in both occurrence and awareness, the hidden and complex factors leading to these alarming rates as well as the remaining impact it has on Black families and communities is rarely explored and discussed. This screening of the award-winning film Aftershock produced, directed and co-produced by Tonya Lewis Lee and Paula Eiselt, takes on these issues and will be followed by a moderated panel discussion addressing the intersecting discourses on policy, birthing justice, midwives, medical accountability, history and surviving partners and families.
Following the preventable deaths of their loved ones due to childbirth complications, two families galvanize activists, birth workers, and physicians to reckon with one of the most pressing American issues of our time: the maternal health crisis. Aftershock follows two families as they become ardent activists in the maternal health space, seeking justice through legislation, medical accountability, community, and the power of art. Their work introduces us to a myriad of people, including a growing brotherhood of surviving Black fathers and the midwives and physicians on the ground fighting for institutional reform. Through these collective journeys, viewers find themselves on the front lines of the growing birth justice movement demanding systemic change within our medical system and government.
The screening was followed by a conversation wit Tonya Lewis Lee, filmmaker along with a diverse panel representing the role that legislation, advocacy, midwifery, medicine, and community play in the urgent need to preserve and support Black motherhood.
Following the preventable deaths of their loved ones due to childbirth complications, two families galvanize activists, birth workers, and physicians to reckon with one of the most pressing American issues of our time: the maternal health crisis. Aftershock follows two families as they become ardent activists in the maternal health space, seeking justice through legislation, medical accountability, community, and the power of art. Their work introduces us to a myriad of people, including a growing brotherhood of surviving Black fathers and the midwives and physicians on the ground fighting for institutional reform. Through these collective journeys, viewers find themselves on the front lines of the growing birth justice movement demanding systemic change within our medical system and government.
The screening was followed by a conversation wit Tonya Lewis Lee, filmmaker along with a diverse panel representing the role that legislation, advocacy, midwifery, medicine, and community play in the urgent need to preserve and support Black motherhood.
