Tori Bowie's death and terrifying experience for 2 of her gold-medal-winning teammates reflect health issues Black women face

In 2016, the United States quartet of Tianna Bartoletta, Allyson Felix, English Gardner and Tori Bowie won gold in the 4x100-meter relay in the Rio Games. Since then, three of those four women experienced complications during their respective pregnancies, leading to grave health situations for babies and mothers.

Bowie’s were fatal, according to an autopsy report revealed this week.

These are three women — Bartoletta (who has since divorced and returned to using her maiden name, Madison), Felix and Bowie — whose fame and physical health, as well as any financial prosperity, couldn’t save them from the troubling statistical realities of being Black and pregnant in the United States.

Bowie was found dead in her bed by sheriff’s deputies last month in Orange County, Florida, after a wellness check was requested when she hadn’t been seen or heard from by friends and family in several days. On Monday, the findings of her autopsy were reported, confirming that she was around eight months pregnant. Authorities say she was in labor at the time of her death, and respiratory distress and eclampsia were listed as possible causes of death.

Preeclampsia, a spike in blood pressure, is a serious condition that occurs in some pregnant individuals after 20 weeks gestation and can lead to preterm birth. According to the National Institute of Health, eclampsia is rarer and more severe, and it effects brain function, causing a coma or stroke.

It is heartbreaking that Bowie was found alone — and that perhaps she and her child, a daughter, according to a New York Times report, could have lived had she not been.

Kimberly Holland, Bowie's longtime agent, told "Good Morning America" this week that she had spoken with Bowie just a couple of weeks before her death. Holland said Bowie was "filled with so much joy. She was so happy. She never complained about any discomfort or that she was having any [pregnancy-related] problems."

It is heartbreaking that while Bowie's story will put a bold-type name on the Black maternal mortality crisis in America, the numbers are, infuriatingly, getting worse. According to data released by the Centers for Disease Control in March, 1,205 people in the United States died of maternal causes in 2021, compared to 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019 — a stunning 60% increase in just two years, though the U.S. Government Accountability Office attributes much of that 2021 rise to COVID-19 while noting that the racial gap in deaths widened.

Before COVID, the U.S. had the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized country. Inexcusably, it's estimated that 80% of those deaths were preventable, according to the most recent data provided by the CDC from 2017 to 2019.

Nationally, the CDC found that Black women in 2021 were 2.6 times more likely than white women to die due to pregnancy or childbirth. Even financial status and education don't help. A groundbreaking, decade-long study published this year looked at two million births in California and found that even the wealthiest Black mothers and babies have a disproportionately higher risk of death than the wealthiest non-Black mothers and babies.

Death is the absolute worst-case scenario, but Black women in the U.S. experience higher rates of pregnancy-related health issues and preterm birth as well. (The March of Dimes in 2022 gave the U.S. an overall preterm birth grade of a D+; Florida got a D.) That's what happened with Felix and Madison.

Felix was found to have severe preeclampsia at 32 weeks and had to have an emergency C-section; her daughter, Camryn, was just 3 pounds, 7 ounces at birth and spent a month in neonatal intensive care. Madison's harrowing birth story, which she detailed in a blog post, included rushing to the hospital at just 26 weeks gestation, spending two days with her feet above her head in a hospital bed both to try to prevent her from dilating further and so that she could receive steroid injections that would speed up her son's lung development, followed by a C-section. Baby Kai spent more than 70 days in the NICU.

Serena Williams, one of the greatest and highest-earning athletes of all time and someone with a history of blood clots, had a pulmonary embolism in the hours after giving birth in 2018 and has indicated that she had to practically beg doctors and nurses for the care she knew she needed.

Hearing about their ordeals is terrifying, and for many Black women, it's easy to wonder: If Olympic gold-winning mamas go through this, with better resources and better access to health care, how bleak is it for the rest?

I realized long ago how fortunate my husband and I are that we didn't have any problems getting pregnant or staying pregnant, but stories such as these make it seem like something akin to a miracle that I gave birth three times, in two hospitals where not a single person on the medical staffs looked like me, and both I and my babies came away unscathed. (While Black infant mortality is disproportionately high, a 24-year study published in 2020 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that Black newborns treated by Black doctors died at far lower rates.) Save for a bout of what I now recognize was postpartum depression after my first, I had no complications.

None of this has to be. Women with stories like mine should not feel like we are the lucky ones. Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) introduced a bill in 2021 called the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act that would provide $1 billion to address many of the causes that lead to maternal deaths. Even though it had 180 co-sponsors, it has not yet been enacted. Last month, Sen. Cory Booker (D.-N.J.) reintroduced the legislation.

The fact that the bill, which would provide federal funding for a host of supportive initiatives, has not passed for more than two years speaks volumes — loud, terrible volumes.

Steps can be taken to reduce the number of women who have terrifying birth experiences like those of Felix, Madison and now Bowie, whose death should heighten awareness.

Since her daughter's birth, the once-reserved Felix has made it her mission to fight for better outcomes for pregnant Black mamas. Holland said if there is any silver lining to Bowie's death, it's the heightened awareness that will come to the Black maternal mortality crisis.

"It's just unfortunate that someone has to pass before we highlight it. It's like we're always working in the rear instead of being proactive," Holland told "Good Morning America."

"So if this can help someone else in some kind of way, by changing some laws or bringing more attention to Black women that experience these types of complications, then I want to do that because I know if Tori were here and she can help someone in any way, she definitely would."

In every other country in the developed world, three-fourths of a championship relay team having pregnancy complications would be unheard of, considered a stain on the medical system. It would likely see corrective steps taken swiftly to prevent further such devastating outcomes.

In America, especially for pregnant Black women, it's reality.