For one couple, a Mother’s Day of joy rather than loss

For Elizabeth and William Faboyede, this Mother’s Day is what it was meant to be: A celebration of motherhood, rather than a day of mourning and loss.

Before Elizabeth had their daughter, Xena-Faye, in 2019 and their son, William III, last year, the Providence, R.I., couple endured three miscarriages and the birth of their first child, Elianna, who lived for three hours before she died in her mother’s arms.

“I’m just grateful my wife is still here,” William said. “Things could have gone very differently.”

Only two months earlier, another woman of color, 27-year-old LaShonda Hazard, died in childbirth at the same Rhode Island hospital.

On Saturday, Boston hosted March of Dimes’ largest fundraiser, March for Babies: A Mother of a Movement to close the health equity gap and raise funds for both mothers and babies who have remained at high risk since before the COVID-19 pandemic. This year’s campaign marked a return to an in-person walk for the first time in two years due to the virus.

After 52 years as the organization’s largest fundraiser — and the nation’s oldest charitable walk — the campaign aims to support every family throughout their pregnancy journey and raise funds to help March of Dimes provide research, programs, education and advocacy so that mothers and babies get the best possible start.

This year, Massachusetts earned a B in the latest March of Dimes’ Report Card, which measures maternal and infant health in the U.S. And while the state’s preterm birth rate is 8.8%, the rate for Black women is 29% higher than the rate for all other women.

“With more research, more education and more advocacy, we can bring that rate down,” said March for Babies Chair Dr. Terrie Inder. “This is critically important not only to prevent premature birth, but also to reduce mortality of mothers.”

The U.S. remains among the most dangerous developed nations for childbirth, especially for women and babies of color.

Nationally, there are about 700 women who die each year with pregnancy and childbirth complications, Inder said. And Black women have a higher risk of hemorrhaging after delivering a baby.

“Those losses could have been prevented,” she said. “There’s nothing more challenging than seeing a father holding a baby, knowing that its mother is dead.”

The data precedes the CDC’s latest report that the rate of hypertensive disorders among delivery hospitalizations has increased, affecting one in seven hospital deliveries for all women and more than one in five for Black women.

Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy are caused by high blood pressure that precedes pregnancy, is diagnosed within the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, or does not resolve by the 12-week postpartum checkup.

The disorders are common pregnancy complications and leading causes of pregnancy-related death in the U.S.

In almost every one of 32-year-old Elizabeth Faboyede’s miscarriages, she went to a Rhode Island hospital multiple times, complaining of pain so severe that she could barely walk. But each time, the hospital staff told her that was normal and sent her home. She finally switched to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where both of her children were born.