Aftershock

Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

Directed by Paula Eiselt and Tonya Lewis Lee and it is a story about two bereaved fathers who galvanize activists, birth-workers and physicians to reckon with the U. S. maternal health crisis after losing their partners due to preventable childbirth complications. The discussions of racism, postpartum and the issues inside of the medical system is really well presented throughout this documentary. The presentation is really good and many of the conversations from the participants are really engaging and at times touching or sad. Systemic racism is a subject that is still common amongst our society around the whole world. It's not something that isn't going to go away so easily. Eiselt and Lee's direction really helped to play the realism and approach of this documentary for the audiences to feel engaged and let them understand what is happening.

Usually these kind of documentaries aren't the films I go see right away since it's not something I am able to relate with, but after viewing it, I still was able to get a grasp on what is happening and feel really bad for the participants. Sound design is really good and the music was good. Although the music does get preachy and sometimes ruins certain emotional moments. It's an overall interesting documentary that I would recommend.

Rating: B+

The effects of systemic racism in obstetrics is examined both through the eyes of families of women who died post-partum due to poor prenatal care and overt neglect of patients' statements about problems pre- and post-delivery, and through the eyes of insightful obstetricians and midwives who are trying to break down the racism in software and distorted metric-drive decision-making for black mothers. Poverty combined with race may be two driving factors leading to poor care, but as one young woman points out, if it can happen to Serena Williams, it can happen to any black woman.

As "Aftershock" (2022 release; 89 min) opens, we see footage of Shamony, whom we learn died 4 months ago from complications after a C section delivery, and then repeated incorrect diagnoses by the hospital. Her partner Amari now carries on alone, with a young child and a new born to take care of. Then we meet Bruno's whose partner Amber Rose also dies during child birth delivered via C section. Amari and Bruno eventually meet up and decide to fight back...

Couple of comments: this documentary is co=produced and co-directed by Paula Eiseil and Tonya Lewis Lee. Here they shine the spotlight on the atrocious and frankly intolerable facts that women in America die in childbirth more than anywhere else in the industrialized world. And the stats are even worse for black women. The co-directors shows us the stats also on how in the 1970s childbirth by C section was truly the exception (5%), and over the following decades, it has become more and more prevalent, and easy/lazy way out for doctors and hospitals (now 1/3 of all child births are via C section), but along the way causing the death rate at child birth to go up. Also striking is that the US is the only country in the industrial world where so very few midwives (rather than doctors) deliver babies. The film makers document the grieving families and how they try to do something about it. It all makes for interesting but surely also frustrating viewing (not because that the documentary is not good of course).

"Aftershock" premiered at this year's Sundance film festival to immediate acclaim, and the film is currently rated 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes for a reason. The movie is now streaming on Hulu, where I caught it the other night. If you have any interest in the US health care system in general, and why child birth death care is so insanely inadequate, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.