How an Iowa TV reporter's story saved her own baby's life

It seemed like a routine assignment for an experienced television reporter. Emily Price, then working at KCCI-TV in Des Moines, met five women at a coffee shop to hear the mission of the group’s nonprofit.

Price was no soft sister. She’d been through the rigors of political reporting, even fighting tough competition for the news — her political reporter husband, Dave Price, over at WHO-TV.

But that day seven years ago, she was floored by the story of how four of the women had stillborn daughters, and the other lost her daughter eight days after birth. Those women told her that in grief they had to do something to prevent it from happening to other families.

Even if one person sees the story, they told her, it could make a difference. It’s the pitch that reporters often hear.

For Emily Price, it was true. She remembered what the women told her that day and, almost a year to the day while pregnant with her first child, she entered the hospital after noticing changes in her babies’ movement.

“I never thought when I started journalism 15 years ago that any story I told would have the potential to impact my family the way this one has,” she said. “It saved our son.”

Since the Des Moines nonprofit Healthy Birth Day started its Count the Kicks campaign in 2009, Iowa’s fetal death rate has dropped 26 percent, from 5.74 per 1,000 live births in 2008 to 4.3 in 2015.

Count the Kicks offered simple but important advice: Track the baby’s movement the same time every day during the third trimester, and log how long it takes to feel 10 movements in two hours. If you notice differences, contact your health care provider.

It could have helped Kerry Biondi-Morlan, 43, of Des Moines, one of Healthy Birth Day’s founders. She was only 32 weeks into her pregnancy when the baby stopped moving. She didn’t do anything right away but became concerned after a few days. Her daughter Grace was stillborn.

She remembered health care professionals saying it was rare. But after the funeral of her baby, she kept running into other women who told her it had happened to them, including women who had babies die in the 1960s, when it was often kept a secret.

She was suffering and felt alone until she met Janet Petersen, Jan Caruthers, Kate Safris and Tiffan Yamen. Their babies died around the same time, in the early 2000s. They got together and grieved. Then they took action.

Helped by Petersen, a Des Moines senator in the Iowa Legislature, they worked to create Iowa’s Stillbirth Registry in 2004 so data could be gathered to shed light on the extent of the problem.

Five years later, they heard of promising research into a method that could help. Many of the 26,000 stillbirths in the U.S. at the time were happening in the last term of the pregnancy. A study from Norway showed that decreased fetal movements were associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as stillbirth.

The women created the Count the Kicks campaign in 2009 to encourage pregnant women to track the baby’s movement daily during the third trimester. They called every obstetrician in Iowa and distributed pamphlets to hospitals and clinics statewide.

It wasn’t long before emails and calls started coming in from women who used the advice to get to a doctor before it was too late.

“I know that’s our little girls,” Biondi-Morlan said, breaking down. “It’s their legacy.”

Their names were Grace, Madeline, Jayden, Grace and Emma Kate.

Along came the reporter to meet them at the coffee shop.

“I didn’t realize stillbirth was an issue,” Price said. “I thought that was something our grandmothers experienced.”

Then she heard their stories of losing their daughters. The emotion stuck with her and so did their passion. There was something that could be done.

When the story aired on KCCI, Price heard from many other mothers.

The program was already working. In the following years, the group claims it’s one of the big reasons for Iowa’s decline in the fetal death rate.

Des Moines obstetrician Tami Fahnlander said that Count the Kicks is one of the keys to the decline in deaths and has become a household name among obstetricians and their patients in Iowa.

“It’s important for moms to know, they are not bothering anybody,” she said.  “The obstetrician always wants to know. That is a phone call we never mind getting.”

In 2010, it was Price who needed to make a phone call to her doctor. It was her first pregnancy, so she was uncertain but empowered to call because she remembered what the women told her.

There was a marked decrease in her baby's movement at 30 weeks of her pregnancy, more than 10 weeks before it should be born.

At the hospital, doctors told her she was having contractions. They gave her a shot, and the nurse said, “It will give him a better chance of survival.”

That’s when it hit her. The baby was in danger.

Price spent four days in the hospital, then was released to strict bed rest for a month.

Little Hayden was born healthy at 40 weeks.

She called to thank the women and decided to join their effort, which included offering an app to bring the message to mothers. Price is the group’s board president today.

In the 2½ years since she has left KCCI to work in communications with the city of Johnston, Price has heard many stories of women holding their children who give credit to the Count the Kicks.

Hayden is 6 today. He loves baseball and dinosaurs and has red hair just like his mom and dad and the family’s newest edition, 1-year-old Lila.

Hayden helped his mom count the kicks when she was pregnant with Lila.

“It helps save babies,” Hayden said one recent day after school.

Price and the founders of Healthy Birth Day feel so strongly that “we can’t keep this a secret,” that they are launching a fundraising campaign Thursday to take Count the Kicks nationwide, alerting every doctor’s office and clinic they can to spread the word.

If the fetal death rate can be decreased 26 percent nationally, as it was in Iowa, it would save 6,250 babies.

Price sits by Hayden on the sofa and thinks back to a man she met at a social function a couple years ago, who told her his son died at birth. It was so tough on them that he and his wife split up.

“He told me his wife was 30 weeks,” Price said, her eyes filling with tears.

It turned out to be the best story she did in her career — in all the ways that matter.

“It was the difference between my boy being here and not being here.”