Project Update: Safe Motherhood Quilt

The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project is well underway. Several names have been assigned to the quilters who have lovingly volunteered to participate in this important project. Thank you.

In watching these squares come together and cataloging how each mother died, Ina May Gaskin noticed a very large number of women who suffered from Amniotic Fluid Embolism. Moreover, a majority of these women were induced with Cytotec, or another form of artificial oxytocin. Cytotec is a drug that was never approved by the FDA for this purpose.

Ina May would like us to create a quilt honoring these women specifically. Many of the names on this list already have squares in the larger Safe Motherhood Quilt Project; this one will be devoted just to AFE deaths. I am beyond honored to create a second square for Tatia Malika Oden French, whose mother I have worked with on a committee to try and increase awareness about patients' rights to informed consent and refusal.

Each of these women has a story. Please read it. If you would like to create a square in honor of one of them, please email me or post a comment on this thread. Together we can begin to raise visual awareness that women are dying unnecessarily, right here in our American hospitals.

1. Janet Spiess
Age 26
Died in Aurora, Illinois
September 16, 1985

2. Denise Puckett - Quilter: Denise Lange
Age 37
Died October 1, 1998
Dallas, Georgia

3. Sofia Rangel - Quilter: Rose
Age 18
Died February 27, 1985
El Paso, Texas

4. Jennifer Lynn Knutson
Age 36
Died April 3, 1998
Orange, California

5. Margaret O'Connor
Died January 28, 1997
Portland, Oregon

6. Gwyneth Vives - Quilter: Marcy Tracy
Age 36
Died December 21, 2001
Santa Fe, New Mexico

7. Darlene Morton - Quilter: Marianne Ogg
Age 32
Died March 9, 1998
New Haven, Connecticut

8. Tatia Malika Oden French - Quilter: Kangaroo
Age 32
Died December 28, 2001
Oakland, California Baby Zorah died with her.

9. Lindsay Michelle King - Quilter: Mell Fraze
Age 18
Died May 6, 2000
Columbia, South Carolina Her baby died with her.

10. Jill Heiman
Age 41
Died December 31, 1991
Eugene, Oregon

11. Suzette McGinnis-Gorman - Quilter: Danielle Damen
Age 37
Died August 28, 2003
Santa Cruz, California

12. Lynne Saiter
Age 30
Died December 14, 1999
Walton, New York

13. Diana Benefield Mateo
Age 40
Died January 18, 2004
Murphy, North Carolina

14. Shannon Stevens
Age 25
Died March 11, 2004
Waco, Texas

15. Bethany K. Joyal
Age 22
Died July 7, 2005
Rochester, New Hampshire

16. Aria Rae Ruggles
Age 24
Died July 26, 2007
Voorhees, New Jersey

17. Randi Madnick
Age 34
Died June 17, 2007
Boynton Beach, Florida

18. Wendy Lee Bassett - Quilter: Marianne Ogg
Age 42
Died April 28, 2008
Rockville, Maryland

19. Pamela Jean Young Lippert - Quilter: Kangaroo
Age 26
Died July 18, 2007
Rocky Mount, Virginia

20. Susan Goodrich - Quilter: Danielle Damen
Age 46
January 11, 2008
Marquette, Michigan