Jodie Turner-Smith and Joshua Jackson decided on welcoming their baby girl at home well before the coronavirus pandemic hit for a specific reason.
“We had already decided on a home birth because of concerns about negative birth outcomes for black women in America,” the “Queen & Slim” star, 33, said in British Vogue’s September 2020 issue. “According to the [CDC], the risk of pregnancy-related deaths is more than three times greater for black women than for white women, pointing, it seems to me, to systemic racism.”
Not only were the couple able to avoid the risks of entering the hospital amid the pandemic, the former “Dawson’s Creek” star, 42, and his wife were also able to be with each other while she was in labor — a process that took four days.
“We never imagined that in the coming weeks, hospitals around the country would begin restricting who could be present in the birthing rooms, forcing mothers to deliver without the support person or people of their choice,” she explained. “Delivering at home ensured that I had what every single woman deserves to have: full agency in determining my birth support.”
And Jackson was nothing but supportive, vowing to never miss a moment of Turner-Smith’s pregnancy.
“Both of us had watched our own mothers struggle to raise children without such support. Both of us were determined to create something different for ourselves,” she explained. “He kept saying to me, ‘There’s no part of this that I’m going to miss.’ And there wasn’t.”
Jackson and Turner-Smith welcomed their daughter in April.