'Irth' hospital review app aims to take the bias out of giving birth
Like any savvy mother-to-be, Harlem-based journalist Kimberly Seals Allers made an informed decision when it came to selecting a hospital in which to give birth. She read articles and parenting blogs, scrolled through reviews, and scanned media rankings. "I really was trying to make sure I went to the best place, quote unquote," she says.
Seals Allers arrived with high expectations, but what happened next was jarring.
"Everything that I read was the standard practice of care I had to fight for," she recalls.
Seals Allers says the nurses chastised her for requesting pain relief. She ended up giving birth to her daughter Kayla by cesarean section, and was never, she says, given a satisfactory explanation for why she couldn't have a vaginal birth. Her daughter was given formula when Seals Allers clearly stated she was breastfeeding.
"I have never felt so helpless in my life," Sears Allers says in the recently released documentary film The Big Idea: Birth Without Bias.
Seals Allers, who has a background in, which collects and shares health care reviews from parents of color. (The name comes from "birth" – but as Seals Allers says "we dropped the B for bias.")
