Bruce McIntyre III remembers exactly when he and his partner, Amber Isaac, first discussed starting a family.
They would visit the Smorgasburg food fair or the Prospect Park Zoo, checking out art everywhere they went.
Last August they stopped by a bookstore, where a book about hip-hop legends as babies caught their eye.
Adobe Stock / Keron / Morgan Johnson
She was like, Oh, Im not leaving without this book.
We have to take this, McIntyre tells SELF.
Were bringing this with us for our baby.
And then she would look at me.
She wanted to make her own organic baby food.
Just days later, on April 21, Isaac died after delivering their son in a Cesarean birth.
Elias Isaac McIntyre never met his mother.
I was trying to get her mentally prepared.
She was scared, you know?
She had expressed to myself and her mother that she felt like she wasnt going to make it.
A similar disparity persists withsevere maternal morbidity, which is when theres a serious complication but not a death.
For white non-Hispanic women, that number was 126.7 per 10,000 deliveries.
Activists, experts, andcommunity-led organizationshave been championing these and other strategies to fight Black maternal mortality for decades.
Now, though, the COVID-19 pandemic may be exacerbating this tragic issue.
McIntyre believes that Isaac received inadequate care and that she should be alive today.
Any maternal death is a tragedy.
Our hearts go out to Ms. Isaacs family, especially to her mother, our longtime colleague.
HELLP moves quickly, and treatment options are limited.
About 1 in 100 women with HELLP die.
We still dont know exactly what causes the preeclampsia that underlies HELLP syndrome,according to ACOG.
Some women with HELLP wind up needing a blood transfusion due to excess bleeding, Dr. Stuebe says.
McIntyre believes Isaacs death should have been preventable with increased monitoring.
Experts say that COVID-19 is undoubtedly affecting care for both coronavirus and non-coronavirus patients.
Maternal health seems very sensitive to when services get suspended, delayed, and disrupted, he says.
If youre Black, pregnant, and scared, no one can blame you for those emotions.
During this pandemic,the standard advice for Black pregnant peoplebecomes more important than ever.
Who do you notify?
Depending on the severity of the symptoms, you may want to seek an urgent evaluation anyway.
Any readings over 150 [systolic] or 100 [diastolic] should prompt an urgent evaluation.
A midwife (clinical birth worker) who focuses on the same may also be helpful.
Ultimately, Dr. Shah says, most health care providers are doing everything they can to care for patients.
Were going in every day to provide the best care that we can at considerable self-risk, he says.
Its been more than three months since Amber Isaac died.
McIntyre has launcheda foundationin her memory and wants to ensure that her story is heard.
Im still in shock, McIntyre says.
She was such a wonderful person.
A school teacher, an advocate for children.
Her whole career was based around children.
She wanted to lead our younger generation.
She wanted to better our communities.
Isaac had planned on finishing her masters degree in May and eventually opening an art-therapy program for children.
She did not deserve this, he says.
She did not deserve this at all.
