1 year ago
36
Olympic Gold Medalist Tori Bowie's Cause of Death Revealed
Content warning: This story contains details of a stillborn infant.
More details surrounding Tori Bowie's tragic decease person emerged aft an autopsy was performed connected her stillborn baby.
The Olympic golden medalist, 32, was astir eight months large with a babe girl erstwhile she was recovered dormant successful her Florida location connected May 2, according to the Orange County Medical Examiner's Office successful Florida. Officials determined that she died from complications of childbirth owed to imaginable respiratory distress and eclampsia.
In an autopsy study for Bowie's stillborn babe obtained by E! News, a aesculapian examiner listed the origin of decease arsenic "intrauterine fetal demise owed to maternal condition," meaning the kid died wrong the uterus.
The babe weighed 1.8 pounds and measured astir 16 inches.
Following the findings, Bowie's cause Kimberly Holland shared much penetration into the athlete's last moments, including that she was not actively performing a location commencement erstwhile her babe started to arrive.
"I tin lone ideate present however that indispensable person been," Holland told CBS News on June 14. "Painful. It hurts. Also to cognize that there's nary baby."
The cause added that Bowie didn't spot hospitals and she "wanted to marque definite that the babe was gonna beryllium good with her being successful control."
Black pistillate are 3 times much apt to dice from a pregnancy-related origin than achromatic women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Factors that lend to these disparities see saltation successful prime healthcare, structural racism and implicit bias.
Ian Stephen/ProSports/Shutterstock
In the aftermath of Bowie's passing, her Team USA teammate Tianna Madison shared that she "nearly died" portion giving commencement to her son Kai in 2021.
"There are 2 reasons wherefore I did marque it," she wrote connected Instagram June 13. "I was each to [sic] alert of@the disparity and communicated this to my spouse truthful we could spell successful eyes wide open."
Madison additionally credited her partner Charles "Chuck" Ryan for being her advocator astatine a clip she couldn't talk for herself. "Even though we agreed astir who his precedence would beryllium successful an exigency concern helium did not instrumentality nary for an reply from the doctors," she continued, "and arsenic a effect saved maine AND the baby."
In her post, Madison further highlighted the information that "THREE (3) of the FOUR (4) of america who ran connected the SECOND fastest 4x100m relay of each time, the 2016 Olympic Champions person astir died oregon died successful childbirth," referring to Bowie and chap way star Allyson Felix, who welcomed daughter Camryn in 2018.
Robert Beck /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images
Felix reshared Madison's station connected her Instagram Stories June 13, adding, "It's perfectly heartbreaking. We proceed to look a Black maternal mortality situation successful this country. We person to bash more."
This isn't the archetypal clip the 11-time Olympic medalist has spoken astir her hard childbirth experience. In a 2021 PSA made for the CDC, Felix—who shares Camryn with sprinter Kenneth Ferguson—said she was diagnosed with terrible preeclampsia erstwhile she was 32-weeks pregnant, resulting successful her being admitted to a infirmary to acquisition an exigency C-section.
"It was conscionable a truly scary, pugnacious situation," she recalled. "I truly privation women to beryllium aware, to cognize if they're astatine risk, to person a program successful place, to not beryllium intimidated successful doctor's offices, and to beryllium heard. To cognize the signs and beryllium persistent astir thing that does not consciousness normal."
For the latest breaking quality updates, click present to download the E! News App
