Client: The Fuller Project

Editor: Peter Gelling

Brief: Providers brushed off Tomeka Walker nearly a dozen times during her first pregnancy. When she showed up with bleeding, called with concerns about lack of movement in the womb, or just generally had questions, she was told “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”

But while getting ready for a Memorial Day cookout at her parents’ home, she started having what felt like period cramps. She later found out they were contractions. Within the hour, she gave birth to her son — who she’d already named Khairi — in her childhood bedroom. He was just over 21 weeks old and died shortly afterward at the hospital.

Walker, like many Black women in the South, did not get the care she needed to cope during own pregnancy loss. Georgia and Alabama, where Walker lives, are the most dangerous places in the country to give birth. But despite that — and because of that — women like Walker have built community-based support to help others who are going through pregnancy-related loss, providing the wraparound care and mental health support that they never had.

A health report by Erica Hensley.