Beyonc, Serena Williams say childbirth more risky for black women

Beyonc, Serena Williams say childbirth more risky for black women

To many, Beyoncé is the history-making superstar who “runs the world” with 22 Grammy Awards to her name — and hot sauce in her bag.

Yet last year, on the day she gave birth to twins Rumi and Sir, she faced a health scare.

Beyonce was swollen from what she called “toxemia” or preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that involves high blood pressure and protein in the urine, estimated to affect about 3.4percent of pregnancies in the United States.

Due to the complication, 36-year-old Beyoncé had been on bed rest for more than a month before having an emergency cesarean section because her and her babies’ health were in danger, she said in Vogue magazine’s September issue, which debuted online Monday.

“Today I have a connection to any parent who has been through such an experience. After the C-section, my core felt different. It had been major surgery,” said Beyoncé, who also was featured on the magazine’s cover.

“Some of your organs are shifted temporarily, and in rare cases, removed temporarily during delivery. I am not sure everyone understands that. I needed time to heal, to recover,” she said.

“During my recovery, I gave myself self-love and self-care, and I embraced being curvier. I accepted what my body wanted to be.”

Similarly, Serena Williams underwent an emergency C-section last year.

Williams, a history-making tennis star with four Olympic gold medals, also made a cameo in Beyoncé’s visual album “Lemonade” in 2016.

Yet last year, after the 36-year-old gave birth to daughter Olympia, she developed blood clots in her lungs.

In an opinion article that Williams wrote for CNN in February, she described how she “almost died.”

Williams has a history of blood clots and stopped taking her blood-thinning medication in order to help her C-section wound heal.

“What followed just 24 hours after giving birth were six days of uncertainty,” she wrote.

Those days included a pulmonary embolism, or blood clots in the lung, that led to such intense coughing that Williams’ C-section wound popped open.

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