Allyson Felix and me: A Mother’s Day reflection on the health crisis of preeclampsia

“It was just heartbreaking,” Felix said in an interview as she reflected on her teammates and the outcomes of their pregnancies: “To see all three of us who went on to be mothers all had these complications, and even one leading to death, I think it just shows that this problem doesn’t discriminate.”

I can relate to Felix and her teammates. I, too, endured a near-death birthing experience.

In August 2024, I was induced at 40 weeks following a healthy pregnancy, but developed preeclampsia in the hospital. I delivered a healthy boy via emergency C-section. My lab results returned to normal, and I was discharged three days later. I was instructed to monitor my blood pressure twice daily.

The day after I returned home, I was extremely fatigued and experienced headaches and shortness of breath. I thought it was exhaustion from childbirth and physical pain from the C-section. Preeclampsia symptoms are often masked as commonly accepted pregnancy discomforts. My blood pressure rose from normal to an emergency level in four hours. I was rushed to the emergency room, diagnosed with severe postpartum preeclampsia, approaching a hypertensive crisis with failing liver function. I was separated from my son for three days while I recovered.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, 5 to 8 percent of births in the United States are complicated by preeclampsia and related hypertensive disorders. It is a condition unique to pregnancy, and it causes about 15 percent of premature deliveries, the clinic says. Postpartum preeclampsia is rarer and can occur up to six weeks after giving birth.

Eclampsia and death from preeclampsia are rare in well-resourced countries like the United States. Despite this, the Preeclampsia Foundation states that the rate of preeclampsia in the U.S. has increased 25 percent in the last two decades and is a leading cause of illness and death for mothers and newborns. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of preeclampsia in Black women is 60 percent higher than in White women. Filipino-American women like me are more likely to experience preeclampsia than other Asian ethnic groups, per the National Institutes of Health.

The CDC estimates that about 80 percent of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. In the United States, where the maternal mortality rate is the highest among developed nations, Black women are roughly three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women.

Stories like mine and those of Felix and her teammates reflect a scary reality: For women who experience complications, pregnancy and birth can quickly become a matter of survival.

It’s a drizzly Friday afternoon at the University of California, Berkeley, not far from the hospital where I gave birth two years ago. Felix, in conjunction with the university’s Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership at the Haas School of Business, is touring campuses to host screenings of her documentary, “She Runs the World,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last June.

“I think there’s something about students when they’re at this stage of life and knowing what’s possible,” Felix said. “And for me, when I was sitting in those seats, I never would have imagined I could use my voice.”

The documentary spotlights Felix’s public dispute with Nike in her battle for increased maternal protections in contracts with sponsors — specifically, that athletes could face a pay cut or stoppage, as well as a loss of health insurance, after giving birth. While we shared the unfortunate commonality of near-death birthing experiences, the film hammered home a brutal truth for elite athletes: Pregnancy isn’t just a health risk; it’s an existential career threat.

Felix longed to start a family years before she got pregnant. When she did, she hid the news for over five months because becoming pregnant in her sport meant “the kiss of death,” as another runner, Phoebe Wright, once put it.

While planning to start a family in 2018, Felix began contract renewal negotiations with Nike. She was 32 years old, had competed in four Olympic Games, and had six Olympic gold medals and 11 world championship golds to her name. In a 2019 op-ed in The New York Times, Felix claimed that Nike offered her a 70 percent pay reduction during those negotiations. She said she asked for a clause specifying they wouldn’t reduce her pay if her performance suffered in the months surrounding childbirth, but was initially rebuffed.

Felix’s op-ed came days after two other American runners, Alysia Montaño and Kara Goucher, shared similar stories with The New York Times. Nike acknowledged to the Times that some of its athletes had sponsorship funds reduced due to pregnancies, and the company ultimately changed its policies to guarantee more maternal protections.

“For the majority of my career, I was scared to have an opinion on anything. I was head down, do the work, and that was the lane that I tried to stay in,” Felix said. Motherhood changed that, she said, adding: “Once I got there, I understood all this power here like, I can use my platform, and I can do something with it.”

Nike’s shift is not the only progress stemming from these efforts. Felix’s op-ed cited other sports-industry brands, like Burton, Altra, Nuun and Brooks, that also took steps to ensure maternal protections. The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee announced in June 2019 that it would seek reforms to its health insurance policy, later expanding coverage to one year after pregnancy. In 2024, USA Track & Field expanded its health insurance program to go beyond one year postpartum, allowing more time for athletes to recover.

Now, pregnancy is becoming less taboo for top athletes. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the world-record-setting track and field star, recently shared that she is pregnant and still hopes to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“When I see athletes like Syd or other athletes who are able to experience pregnancy at the peak of their career, I’m really excited that they hopefully will not have the road that I had,” Felix said. “… I think a lot of women have gone through a lot so that this crop of athletes can experience what they are now. And I think it’ll be a much easier path.”

After the documentary screening and the interview for this story, Felix announced her comeback to running and her hope to qualify for her hometown L.A. Games, which would be her sixth Olympics. She would be 42. She plans to begin a full training schedule in October and to return to certified competition in 2027.

Madison, who got pregnant three years after Felix in 2021, felt pressure to return to the track immediately. Her son’s precarious arrival, however, changed everything.

“Me and (partner) Chuck were in the NICU together, and he was like, ‘Because he came so early, you technically could come back in time for (the 2024 Paris Olympics).’ I shot him a look that probably could have melted wires,” she said.

“I don’t fault him for this because at the time, all we were seeing were the moms who came back to sport and the babies were at practice,” she added.

Madison said she understood in that moment that the Paris Games were unrealistic and that the focus had shifted toward her son. “I knew very clearly that my career was over. And that my new job was him and getting us through that,” she said.

Her son Kai’s 73-day NICU stay, and the support they received from hospital staff, inspired Madison to complete her undergraduate degree in social work at the University of Tennessee. She interned at Providence House in Cleveland, an organization that provides support to families in crisis. She now works at San José State University in California, coaching track and field and providing mental health support to student-athletes while completing a master’s degree. Her dissertation is on improving foster care outcomes for Black children in Northeast Ohio.

“Five years ago, I would’ve never focused on that,” Madison said. “But there’s something about this area and parenting and maternity and motherhood that I just can’t let go, especially because of my lived experiences, my teammates’ lived experiences.”

“I just feel like I can give them hell and make a change,” she added.

Providing support for Black mothers hits close to Madison’s heart. In 2020, her hometown of Elyria, Ohio, closed its only labor and delivery center, citing decreased volume. Madison said that when she completes her graduate degree, she plans to work toward getting a birthing center back within the city limits of her hometown, to increase access to prenatal care and to provide expecting mothers with education.

For a long time after giving birth, I felt a bit dead inside. My body wasn’t my own. I was trying to figure out how to take care of a demanding little human. I was trying to figure out how to come back and excel at my job as The Athletic’s talent development director.

Recently, I’ve been starting to feel a little bit like myself again. Becoming a mother and going through my experience has driven me to use my voice and share details about a pregnancy complication that is far more common than most people know. It’s a feeling that Felix knows well.

“I did understand that this is a story that’s much bigger than me,” Felix said. “And that was the difference, that it wasn’t just my story. It’s so many women who have come before me; it’s their story. And if you never tell a story, nothing will change.”

She also considered her daughter as she navigated the challenges within her sport and her circumstances.

“I knew that if anything was going to give me the courage to really put it out there, and to be vulnerable, it was my own daughter,” she said.

Stories like the ones shared by Felix, Madison and me are among the few that reach the public’s attention. But the responsibility to inform should not fall on the shoulders of the women who’ve survived these ordeals. Maternal and infant illness and death are public health crises that should be treated as such. I hope that by shedding light on this topic, the conversation around pregnancy complications will spread more widely and urgently to prevent unnecessary death and suffering.

To do so, increased education and access to prenatal care are essential. We must listen to women and provide them with more support during their pregnancies and recoveries after giving birth. We should not accept that for many women, pregnancy is a matter of life and death.

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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