Pivotal moments strike when they’re least expected. Some borne through happiness, some through tragedy and yet more through the specter of what could have been if life’s sliding doors had opened a fraction sooner – or later. Crossroads presented, decisions to make, pathways to take.

For Christy Turlington Burns, the pivotal moment that has led and shaped much of her life for the last 20 years came on 23 October 2003 with the birth of her first child.

Minutes after she and husband Ed Burns welcomed their daughter, Grace, into the world, Turlington Burns suffered a postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), which could have killed her.

For many women, a PPH does kill. In fact, it’s the leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide with 14 million women experiencing a PPH every year. The annual mortality rate from suffering such an episode currently sits at 70,000.

Christy Turlington Burns visits the MWEDO Secondary School for Girls in Tanzania with Olympian Alysia Montaño in February 2022. Image: Sarah Waiswa

“It was such a part of my destiny to have that realization that … if you’re not in the right place at the right time or you don’t have access to safe and respectful maternity care, the difference between life and death is very visceral.”

Turlington Burns was only too aware that access to maternal health care before, during and after her pregnancy in the United States meant that she was one of the lucky ones. But, around the world, with one woman dying every two minutes from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, it could easily have been a very different outcome.

And in the years that followed her traumatic entry into motherhood, Turlington Burns became determined to ensure that pregnancy and childbirth were safe for everyone, everywhere.

Never was this purpose clearer than on a visit two years later to her mother’s homeland of El Salvador while pregnant with her second child, Finn.

“It was such a part of my destiny to have that realization that had I lived in some of the communities there or in so many others that I have visited since in my own country where, if you’re not in the right place at the right time or you don’t have access to safe and respectful maternity care, the difference between life and death is very visceral,” she says.

Inspired to go back to school to study public health, Turlington Burns began to unpack the challenges women and girls face around the world, simply trying to bring life into the world. “If, in fact, they have the choice about when and how and where they’ll do that at some point in their life,” she comments.

The Power of Storytelling

Far from being satisfied with simply lending her name to a cause, Turlington Burns’ own harrowing experience became a driving force for change, which saw the production of her 2010 documentary No Woman, No Cry and in the same year, the founding of maternal health nonprofit Every Mother Counts.

“I became a global maternal health advocate the day I became a mother,” she states on the Every Mother Counts website. “Every mother has a story. It’s our job at Every Mother Counts to make sure these stories are documented and shared widely so that others will learn from them, and one day these tragedies will be stories of the past.”

It’s this storytelling that’s at the core of Every Mother Counts’ advocacy strategy. Turlington Burns recognizes that statistics alone cannot capture the human impact of maternal mortality. By sharing personal narratives and experiences, she has humanized the maternal healthcare issue, making it relatable and compelling for a broad audience and underscoring the importance of authentic communication in driving social change.

Christy Turlington Burns arrives at the Association of Midwives of the Mam Speaking Area birth center located in in Concepción, Chiquirichapa – a municipality in the Guatemalan department of Quetzaltenango in Guatemala’s Western Highlands. Image: Janet Jarman

“Every mother has a story. It’s our job at Every Mother Counts to make sure these stories are documented and shared widely so that others will learn from them, and one day these tragedies will be stories of the past.”

“I’m a very open communicator,” she says, noting that when she first began advocating on the subject of maternal health and birth equity, she was only concerned with being the best advocate she could possibly be. “Leadership was not the goal.”

However, a leader she is, and while she favors collaboration over hierarchical structures, she also recognizes that ultimately decisions have to be made. “There has to be forward movement. And sometimes that can’t require consensus,” she says.

“The most exciting thing that can come with leadership is creativity, and being able to be open-minded enough to try new things, to do it differently.”

A Different Kind of Advocacy

Doing things differently is arguably Every Mother Counts’ calling card and the global impact of its work, assisting community-based organizations that serve mothers and families in developing countries around the world, is evident.

More than 1.5 million women, families and healthcare providers have been supported by Every Mother Counts initiatives and its strategic focus on healthcare system strengthening, education and policy advocacy in places as diverse as Tanzania and Guatemala.

Christy Turlington Burns, Nirvana Manning and Chelsea Clinton speak at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas in December 2022. Image: Nelson Chenault III

“We’ve learned a lot but there’s so much more to learn, especially as the world is changing all the time. We can always do better. Being really committed to continuous learning is essential.”

By combining her personal experiences with research-backed strategies, Turlington Burns has successfully positioned Every Mother Counts as a leader in the maternal health space. But she’s at pains to point out that there is still so much to be done and even more on what to improve.

“We’re an almost 15-year-old organization, which I think of as a child. It’s an adolescent still,” she says. “We’ve learned a lot but there’s so much more to learn, especially as the world is changing all the time. We can always do better. Being really committed to continuous learning is essential.”

Part of Every Mother Counts ‘doing better’ involves scheduling in time to reflect. “It’s easy to get bogged down in what you’re doing rather than look at how you’re doing it and how you could do it better,” she explains. “The idea of trying to maintain some space to have reflective moments, to be able to learn in real time, rather than having to look back and catch up with yourself all the time, is invaluable.”

Christy Turlington Burns runs the 2021 New York City Marathon to raise money for Every Mother Counts. Image: Jean Paul Gomez

“The idea of trying to maintain some space to have reflective moments, to be able to learn in real time, rather than having to look back and catch up with yourself all the time, is invaluable.”

One of the notable aspects of Turlington Burns’ leadership is her recognition that solving complex global issues requires collaboration and that the ability to nurture relationships is part of the solution.

Under her, Every Mother Counts has forged strategic partnerships to create a comprehensive approach to address the multifaceted challenges faced by mothers globally.

“There’s so little from my first career that I would say has anything to do with my career today except for relationships,” she says of her early days starting out as a model in New York. “In a career that was really not about longevity, I have these decades-long relationships. Relationships that have evolved from that other world and continued or deepened because of the work I do now. That’s something I’m really proud of.”

Beyond traditional nonprofit partnerships, Turlington Burns has successfully engaged with the corporate world to garner support for Every Mother Counts. Her ability to communicate the urgency of the maternal health crisis has resonated with business leaders, leading to collaborations with brands, the majority of which are women-founded, owned and led, such as Clare V. and Minted.

No doubt it’s her deep personal connection to the cause that infuses Every Mother Counts with a sense of purpose, which resonates with supporters and collaborators alike. But Turlington Burns’ leadership is not confined to the boardroom; she leads by example as well.

From running in the New York City Marathon to raise awareness and funds for Every Mother Counts to field visits, where she immerses herself in the communities Every Mother Counts serves, Turlington Burns has a distinctly hands-on approach to her work.

It’s this willingness to gain firsthand insights into the challenges faced by women and healthcare providers that informs Every Mother Counts’ targeted initiatives.

The Strategy of Change

Our discussion moves on to personal legacy. There was a time when she says she wanted to separate her well-documented past successes from her current humanitarian focus, but now she realizes it’s all connected.

“I recognize that because I did that career for such a long time, it’s a part of me, too,” she says. “But if I’m long gone and someone says, ‘Who was this person?’ I would much rather be known for having made the lives of others safer, more respectful, the role of motherhood itself more valued and more visible, rather than how many lipsticks I sold, how many magazine covers I was on.”

In line with many businesses and organizations coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Every Mother Counts took stock and invested in strategic planning with the help of external consultants.

“At the beginning of 2023, I was ready to think about what I wanted the organization to stand for long-term. What did we need to do in order to institutionalize what we do?” she says. “All things that are very much a part of being a nonprofit of our age.”

That planning has led to Every Mother Counts determining its focus for the next 12–18 months as addressing reproductive rights rollbacks, anticipating the impact on maternal health and revisiting the roots of awareness-raising.

Christy Turlington Burns greets a mother and her baby at Every Mother Counts’ annual MPower Luncheon in May 2022. Image: Tory Williams

“If I’m long gone and someone says, ‘Who was this person?’ I would much rather be known for having made the lives of others safer, more respectful, the role of motherhood itself more valued and more visible, rather than how many lipsticks I sold, how many magazine covers I was on.”

“It’s about recommitting to bringing more people into the conversation, sharing their experiences, understanding the challenges that exist around the world and building a movement that allows us to collectively address those barriers to improve the experience for future mothers,” explains Turlington Burns.

In essence, it’s using storytelling as a force for good.

Turlington Burns’ own story offers valuable insights into the transformative potential of aligning personal passion with a commitment to positive change on a global scale. And despite its shaky start, her journey through motherhood is a positive one – Grace is at college and son Finn will follow his sister in the fall. But she’s all too aware that for many women, there is no happy ending.

With the current spotlight on International Women’s Day, the truth of this becomes all the clearer and for Turlington Burns, presents an opportunity for movement-building.

“I’m interested in the movement of women being something that truly unifies. It’s much more about human rights and gender equity,” she says. “Every person obviously counts, every human. But I still think that women have a lot further to go in order to have that equity. And so until we get there, we need to continue to push as often as we can.”

Cover image: Jody Rogac