Special to the Journal
At the UMASS Club in Downtown Boston, dozens of supporters and advocates in the perinatal space showed up to the launch of the Cord Foundation an organization dedicated to the mission of “bringing awareness to people who experience severe perinatal health challenges, and to build a network of support and resources for families and improve perinatal outcomes for parents and their children.” Among the supporters were the Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Kim Driscoll, State Senator Liz Miranda, State Representative Adrian Madaro, and Jessie Colbert, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Postpartum Depression Fund (Mass PPD); key players in the maternal health bill passed by the legislature late last year.
In 2022, Crystal suffered a traumatic birth experience while giving birth to her son Lucas and then developed postpartum psychosis, a psychiatric emergency which causes hallucinations, delusions, confusion, rapid mood swings, and paranoia. Both experiences she says nearly cost hers and her son’s life.
In her speech Crystal shared her powerful story of pain, struggle, and resilience and perseverance saying that the foundation is an effort “to break away from the statistics and stigma.” She shared: “Not just for me but for all women. We are here to do away with the misdiagnosis, the silence, the biased neglect, and the economic barriers to education and care that turn new parents, particularly new birthing parents into statistics of pain. We are here to flip the table on that and turn our stories, survivors’ stories into narratives of power, healing, and strength.”
Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, State Senator Madaro, and State Representative Madaro all spoke to Crystal’s strength and the importance of her story to ensure that we are building an ecosystem of care for new parents vowing to partner with her and the other organizations in the room to continue to support new birthing parents and their families. The three elected officials were presented with original artwork from Crystal as a gift of gratitude and recognition for their work on the maternal health bill passed last year.
According to a study by BMC Research published at the National Institute of Health Library of Medicine, Black and Hispanic women are 7% more likely than White women to have an unplanned or emergency c-section. The same study notes that 53% of birthing parents who are induced into labor will have an emergency c-section (Carlson et al.4).1 All of these were complicating factors for Crystal who mentioned in her speech feeling shellshocked after her emergency c-section. This along with economic stressors from being illegally laid off from work during her parental leave, put her on a path to develop postpartum psychosis. This condition appears to happen to 2 out of every 1,000 new moms according to Post Partum Support International, although experts in the field like Jessie Colbert say that that number is largely underreported.
Jessie Colbert the Executive Director of the Mass PPD fund said “Crystal’s leadership as a mom with lived experience of the most challenging maternal mental health conditions is so important. Despite huge steps forward, there’s still so much stigma and misunderstanding around perinatal mental health, and so much work to do to create a real safety net — especially for less resourced families. I’m thrilled that Crystal has launched the Cord Foundation to work to make things better.”
The Cord will focus on creating a culturally competent perinatal and postpartum care workforce, removing barriers to access to holistic care for new and expecting parents, advocating for policy changes to build a better care infrastructure, and bringing awareness to the issues that brought Crystal to launch the foundation. The Cord’s Board is made up of primary care physician, Dr.
Leigh Simmons, Attorney Niles Welch, Gemma Martin The Cord’s Treasurer, and State Senator Lydia Edwards who attended in-person or virtually. Also in the room were representatives from the Massachusetts Hospital Association, Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation, and CME, organizations who are supportive of The Cord’s work. The Cord Foundation is a 501c(3)
non-profit organization, for more information about the Cord Foundation visit www.thecordfoundation.org.
