By the time Sharilyn Chavez’s fiance was allowed in the room during the birth of her first child, there was blood all over the floor. She was not routinely checked for dilation. There were not an adequate amount of sonograms performed leading up to labor. Her operative report, detailing the surgical record of her cesarean delivery, was not properly completed.
After the procedure, Chavez’s husband was more than distraught.
“He literally said, ‘If we ever have a baby again, I’m not letting you leave the house,’” Chavez said.
It is no surprise that when having her second child, Chavez wanted to interrogate the systems that previously traumatized her, nor that she chose to explore alternative options.
While thankfully both Chavez and her child survived her c-section, the mistreatment of black women in medical spaces nationally continues to perpetrate catastrophic discrepancies across child births.
Black women are four times more likely to die during pregnancy or within one year after pregnancy than White women, according to a 2024 study conducted by the National Library of Medicine.
East Flatbush, a predominantly Black Brooklyn neighborhood, had more than seven times the infant mortality rate than in majority white neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village/SoHo and Bay Ridge.
Following her first birth Chavez challenged a common medical narrative that a prior birth via C-section requires a subsequent one. After being rejected by a birthing center for a home birth, Chavez found an expert who specialized in VBACs — vaginal births after a previous Cesarean section — and suggested exploring a home birth.
Trinisha Williams, 20-year health care professional and President and Founder of Haven Midwifery Birthing Center served aided delivery of her second child.
In addition to her medical practice, much of Williams’s professional life has been dedicated to researching and challenging the Black maternal health crisis. When training at midwifery school, she encountered an environment lacking both instructors of color and methods that did not feel intrusive. She is now the president of the American Association of Birth Centers, having joined to address the lack of representation for people of color in leadership roles.
Williams defines the Black maternal health crisis as a situation where those who look like her have "suffered irreparable harm by not being heard or listened to when it could be prevented.”
Although she does not believe home births should always be used as an alternative to traditional medical care — Williams often recommends her patients to seek hospital care when necessary — her work remains radical in that it begins a conversation about options for mothers who are too often told birthing decisions are out of their hands.
According to filmmaker Ayanna Gill, another step in addressing the crisis is the way we talk about it. As alarming as numbers can be, Gill said they are not enough.
“We truly are up against popular discourse that treats this crisis as another systemic inequality and something that people are broadly aware of, but they feel no personal connection to,” Gill said.
Her upcoming film, “Between Two Hands,” features both Chavez and Williams.
Williams was initially hesitant to be a part of the project, as many of the birthing films she had seen failed to address midwives or midwifery. When Gill expressed that midwifery as an alternative for those mistreated by medical systems was central to the film, Williams agreed to be on board.
“If it wasn’t for Trinisha I probably wouldn’t have said yes to Ayanna,” Chavez said about her decision to be featured, including giving permission to be filmed during her at-home birth.
The day she met Trinisha, she said, she came to her house and hugged her. “You know what, I’ve never been hugged by a medical person. She saw me as a whole person and also as a whole family, versus a number.”
When agreeing to be filmed in such a vulnerable way, Chavez said that her professional work as an executive and leadership coach played a role. She viewed the film as an opportunity to share a sort of mission statement: that others like her knew there were alternative decisions out there.
Similarly, Gill’s sense of urgency to make her film comes from her own personal experience, having watched two of her friends lose their babies to the black infant mortality crisis.
“For me, it was always going to be the intimacy of telling it from the people on the ground, the people within my community,” Gill said.
For Gill, the title “Between Two Hands," is a nod to safety, being held and a deep trust during one of the most transformative and vulnerable acts of human life.
While Chavez echoed Williams’ sentiment that hospital births are still often recommended and necessary, her story shows there’s power in knowing you have a choice within a national medical system that too often fails mothers like her.
The film's trailer and more information can be found at betweentwohandsfilm.com.
