Celebrity Mothers Participating In No Mothers Day To Help Raise Birth Complication Awareness
Debra Messing
Growing up, whenever I would ask my mother what she would like for Mother’s Day, her birthday, Christmas, or any other holiday for that matter, I’d always get the same answer: “Just your love.” I always thought she was being well, my mom, in her usual blunt fashion but now and so many years later I completely understand what she means as this coming Mother’s Day, she along with hopefully many more mothers will be repeating her same exact words.
Former supermodel and celebrity mother Christy Turlington is urging mothers to boycott their special day by canceling their Mother’s Day brunches and manicure/pedicure appointments to instead raise awareness for the 358,000 mothers who die worldwide from pregnancy or childbirth complications each year.
Christy, along with fellow celebrity moms Kelly Rutherford, Debra Messing, Blythe Danner, and Jennifer Connelly appear in a two-minute video that was posted on Wednesday that asks women to participate in “No Mothers Day,” which is sponsored by Christy’s foundation, Every Mother Counts. In the video (which also features Babble’s very own Alisa Volkman and Catherine Connors), Christy and company ask that we “Answer no emails. No phone calls. No Facebook updates.”
Each year, 358,000 mothers die from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. The clip begins by saying, “One thousand. That is how many women will die this Mother’s Day. Not from old age. Not from cancer. But because these women were about to become mothers.”
Christy, who also directed the video, says she made the clip because she wanted to do something “different” for Mother’s Day this year. She tells Time Magazine: “There are a lot of organizations that focus on Mother’s Day as an opportunity. In order to really get people’s attention within that noisy period, we kind of needed to do something slightly different. We worked with a creative agency in New York [CHI&Partners] that created this moment to create space to get people’s attention and continue the dialogue after Mother’s Day.”
For more information on how you can participate “No Mother’s Day” check out Every Mother Counts and tell us, will you be going silent this year to help raise awareness for this excellent cause among your family and friends too?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0w669fZBH8[/youtube]
Whoa, maybe I’m missing something here, but how does a video about maternal death (a very serious issue) educate the public on infertility? Just because they are two issues associated with reproductive health doesn’t make a video about one educate about the other.
“It also brings awareness to infertility and the would-be mothers who have struggled to conceive on their own.”
I watched the video and nowhere in the video is awareness brought to people who cannot get pregnant or sustain a pregnancy.