04/10/2026
Her name is Christy Turlington. She was born in 1969 in Walnut Creek, California, and grew up as the middle of three daughters. Her father was a Pan Am pilot, and her mother was a flight attendant from El Salvador. Christy began modeling after school when she was just 14. By the time she turned 18, she had moved to New York to pursue modeling full time.
In 1989, at just 20 years old, she signed a record breaking million dollar contract with Calvin Klein. She soon became one of the original supermodels, appearing on the covers of *Vogue* and working with some of the biggest names in fashion, including Chanel, Versace, and Prada. In 1993, the Metropolitan Museum of Art even created a line of mannequins based on her face. For many people, reaching that level of success would have been enough. Christy, however, had other plans.
In 1994, she returned to school, and five years later, she graduated with honors from New York University. Then, in June 2003, she married filmmaker Edward Burns in San Francisco. At the time, she was 25 weeks pregnant and already thinking carefully about the birth of her child. She wanted to give birth without medication, with the support of a midwife and a doula, at a birth center inside a New York hospital just a few miles from home.
On October 23, 2003, her daughter Grace was born healthy. The delivery went almost exactly as Christy had hoped, and she later described it as perfect. But shortly afterward, the atmosphere in the room changed. Her placenta failed to come out, a complication known as retained placenta. There was no test that could have predicted it beforehand.
The midwife called for help, and an obstetrician stepped in. The medical team had to remove the placenta by hand. Christy later said the pain was far worse than labor itself. Then she began bleeding heavily, losing several liters of blood. One moment, she had felt strong and in control. The next, she was helpless as her body began to fail her.
The medical team moved quickly and managed to stop the bleeding. She did not even need a blood transfusion. The following day, she took her newborn daughter home. She was safe, and Grace was healthy, but Christy could not stop thinking about what had happened.
She began reading about the complication and was stunned by what she discovered. What she had survived was called postpartum hemorrhage, one of the leading causes of maternal death worldwide. It accounts for about 27 percent of deaths linked to pregnancy and childbirth. The numbers were devastating. In the year Grace was born, more than 500,000 women and girls died from pregnancy and childbirth, and most of those deaths could have been prevented.
These women were not dying because medicine had no answers. Many were dying because they could not access the care Christy had received: a trained midwife, a doctor nearby, and a hospital just a few miles away. She understood how fortunate she had been, but she also knew that luck should never determine whether a mother survives childbirth.
In 2005, Christy began working with the aid organization CARE, becoming its Advocate for Maternal Health. Her mother had supported CARE for years, so the cause was already close to her family. Christy returned to school once again, this time studying public health at Columbia University. She wanted to understand the problem and find ways to address it, rather than simply lend her famous name to the cause.
She also picked up a camera. In April 2010, her first film, *No Woman, No Cry*, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Christy directed the 60 minute documentary herself. It followed mothers in four countries: Tanzania, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and the United States. The film began with her own experience, including footage from the day Grace was born. That same year, she launched Every Mother Counts, an organization built around a simple goal: making pregnancy and childbirth safe for every mother, everywhere.
On May 7, 2011, the film aired on Oprah Winfrey's new television network. Later that year, in November, Christy ran her first New York City Marathon in support of mothers. She continued running and eventually completed the London Marathon in three hours and 46 minutes, earning a place in the Boston Marathon. She explained her commitment in one line: "I became a global maternal health advocate the day I became a mother."
Every Mother Counts went on to invest more than $27 million in programs across Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. The organization supported smaller local groups that understood the needs of their own communities. Over the years, global maternal deaths fell from around 530,000 a year to approximately 303,000. The number remained far too high, but the decline showed that progress was possible.
In 2025, Every Mother Counts marked its 15th anniversary. Grace was grown by then and had even begun modeling, following in her mother's footsteps. In 2026, at 57, Christy became a global face of Lancôme.
Yet her most important work remains far removed from the fashion world that first made her famous. It began in a hospital room, about an hour after what should have been the happiest moment of her life. She could have gone home grateful that she and her baby had survived and simply moved on. Instead, she asked herself a question that would shape the next two decades of her life: What happens to the mothers who do not have what I had?
She has spent more than 20 years trying to answer it.
