Our Interview with Christy Turlington

Last Wednesday, we were thrilled to interview Christy Turlington for our upcoming DVD. We went to her Tribeca loft and sat down for an intimate talk about her childbirth experiences and her advocacy work on behalf of maternal mortality. Christy is renowned internationally for her beauty, but when you meet her you realize it’s her inner light and spirit that makes her so captivating. Dressed in casual “mommy clothes” with scarcely a drop of makeup, she glows from within and seems completely in her element directing a documentary about maternal mortality, getting her masters in public health at Columbia University, raising two children, and…oh yeah…being a supermodel. A few years ago, Christy was about six months pregnant when she took a trip with the CARE organization to her mother’s birth country of El Salvador. The trip had a profound impact on Christy and she couldn’t stop thinking about the women she met there and the shocking statistic that half a million mothers die in childbirth each year, and 90% of those deaths are preventable. Christy had two natural births with midwives, but her first birth developed a complication when her placenta had to be manually removed and she lost a lot of blood. The idea that this complication, so easily treated by a skilled birth attendant, might kill a mother in the third world was unacceptable to Christy. She has since made it her mission to educate herself thoroughly on this global situation and advocate for poor mothers in underserved areas around the world. This spring she will be traveling to Guatemala and Tanzania to film her documentary, which sounds extraordinary and much-needed. We hope to have some “sneak peeks” of her interview posted on the website in a few weeks so stay tuned.