New York, NY — Irth, as in Birth but without the B for bias, a new digital platform to address a root cause of the Black maternal and infant mortality crises—racism and bias in care, launched in the Apple and Google Play app stores today. The app allows Black and brown women and birthing people of color to search and leave reviews of their OB/GYN, birthing hospitals, postpartum care, and pediatricians, up to the baby’s first year.
Inspired by her own birth experience, Kimberly Seals Allers, a former senior editor at Essence, five-time author, and maternal health advocate created Irth to leverage consumer power to bring transparency and public accountability to the treatment of Black and brown women in the medical system and to provide a front-end decision-making tool for pregnant women and new parents.
“When I had my first child, I asked white co-workers and friends for recommendations, read all the “Best of” lists for hospitals, and was excited to deliver at a highly-ranked institution. Instead, I left feeling dismissed, disrespected, and traumatized. Exactly opposite to what my white peers had experienced. At that time in my life, I was not yet married and was finishing graduate school, and was therefore on student health insurance. And that’s how I was treated—like an unwed Black woman with basic insurance. I never forgot that,” says Seals Allers.
