Long after a pregnancy ends, the experience leaves a lasting memory on a woman and can have a profound effect on her in the transition to motherhood and beyond. Until September, after nearly a decade, Aaliyah Samuel had never shared her firstborn child’s birth story publicly. But on that fall afternoon, Samuel, who is African American and a fellow at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, sat in an Annandale conference room with other moms, health-care providers, community leaders and officials from the Virginia governor’s office to talk about how her son Caleb came into the world and died two days later. Reluctantly, she stepped into the spotlight to convince Richmond policymakers that racial disparities in maternal health are very real and must be addressed.

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