Sundance review: 'Aftershock' tells heartbreaking human stories to illustrate America's maternal death rate
The heartbreaking documentary “Aftershock” leaves a deep mark on the soul, as it puts human faces — boyfriends, mothers and children — to a chilling fact: Black women are four times as likely to die in childbirth than white women at similar economic levels.
The explanations that directors Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee (wife of Spike Lee) list for that statistic are equally troubling. Black women are more likely to be given C-sections, to speed the delivery along, and because hospitals get more money for C-sections than vaginal births — and Black women are more likely to be covered by Medicare or Medicaid, rather than private insurers. Also, the medical establishment pushed midwives, particularly Black midwives, out of the business. And, the film notes, Black women in the time of slavery were experimented on in the early days of what’s now called gynecology.
While the facts are depressing, the human stories are terribly sad. Shamony Gibson, age 30, was sent home with her new baby after a C-section, and was told to “just relax” when she reported shortness of breath; she died two weeks later from a pulmonary embolism. Amber Rose Isaac’s platelet levels were dropping into the danger zone for weeks before she had her baby, and she died during her C-section.
Gibson’s mother, Shawnee Benton-Gibson, started organizing rallies and mobilizing protests. Shamony’s partner, Omari Maynard, a painter and now single father of two, teamed up with Rose’s partner, Bruce McIntyre, to launch a support group for husbands and partners of women who died during childbirth, and speak to medical students about the unconscious biases that have to confront to give equitable care to all patients.
It’s in these stories that Eiselt and Lee find the heart of the problem. While hospitals send out anodyne statements that “every death is a tragedy” without taking responsibility, these families show in detail the emotional costs of systemic bias.
There is hope in “Aftershock,” though. Some professionals are taking the issue of bias in medicine seriously. And the movie follows one couple who decide to hire a doula to assist their childbirth, to avoid the hospitals and C-sections. When the film shows that baby born, and that mom healthy, it’s a sign that there is a better way than obstetric medicine as it’s practiced today.
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‘Aftershock’
★★★1/2
Premiered Sunday, January 23, and screened again Tuesday, January 25, in the U.S. Documentary competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. No more screenings scheduled on the festival portal. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for some nudity, a childbirth scene, and some language. Running time: 89 minutes.