#ICount

#ICount is a social media campaign utilizing TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to share the stories of survivors of near-miss in their own voices.

The biggest challenge we face even today in raising awareness is the assumption that this does not happen in the USA, compounded by a natural inclination to urge survivors to focus on positive outcomes, and to protect newly pregnant women from frightening, and frankly rare outcomes. The problem with that is maternal death and near-miss are increasing in the USA, particularly for women of color, and most of those deaths are avoidable. We believe a pregnant woman is entitled to be educated all aspects of pregnancy, not just the warm and fuzzy ones. We would never tell a woman to not check her breasts each month for lumps because it might be scary. What is scary is not knowing the facts and not knowing how to advocate for yourself.

For a time, the CDC even stopped counting maternal deaths and only recently restarted due to the challenges of this kind of data collection and comparison: varying definitions state to state of when the death happened (did it happen within 48 hours, did it happen within six weeks, six months, a year?), the inconsistent use of a checkbox on death certificates to help identify maternal deaths, the inconsistent use of what causes maternal death – for example – we include suicide and postpartum psychosis as causal factors of death and near-miss; and the often limited or inadequate funding of “Maternal Mortality Review Committees” – state task forces charged with reviewing death certificates to identify maternal deaths.

And this is when the woman dies. They do not count “near-misses” in any meaningful way because of similar challenges that exist. As a result – we do not have good numbers as to how many women die or almost do.

So we’re going to count ourselves. The campaign is simple and modeled after the #ItGetsBetter campaign. When we launch the campaign – record yourself and share it on social media using a personalized version of the following script, (the bold script is for you to make your own), and the hashtag #ICount.

“Hi. My name is Anne Garrett, and in 1996, in Bellevue, Washington, I almost died from HELLP Syndrome following the birth of my son Kieran. I spent six weeks postpartum on what my doctor called “stroke watch” – which is apparently where you watch over your shoulder for an impending stroke. I am a near-miss survivor and I COUNT.”

By raising your voice and saying, “I am a maternal near-miss survivor and I count,” we stand up and make it clear that mothers matter and we count.

If you are interested in being alerted to the launch of this campaign – please like the Unexpected Project page on Facebook and follow us for the announcement.