In conversation with... Five X More

In recent years, conversations around maternal health disparities have gained momentum. 

Previously, Black women in the UK were reported to be five times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than white women. Through campaigning, advocacy, and community-led support, this disparity has slightly decreased to three times.

At the forefront of this movement is Five X More.

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Founded by Clotilde Abe and Tinuke Awe, Five X More is not just raising awareness but also driving real change in healthcare policies and support systems for Black mothers.

Their work has led to a number of groundbreaking achievements. A petition - raised by the duo - gathered over 187,000 signatures and was debated in Parliament. This debate led to a response in June 2020: “The Government is funding a NIHR Policy Research Unit in Maternal and Neonatal Health and Care study into factors associated with the higher risk of maternal death for Black and South Asian women.”

Clotilde and Tinuke also launched the UK’s first Black Maternity Experiences Survey, shedding light on the lived realities of Black women in the healthcare system. 

The Science Gap sat down with Clotilde and Tinuke to discuss their journey, the challenges they’ve faced, and their hopes for the future of Black maternal health in the UK.

Could you share how your individual journeys influenced your advocacy for Black maternal health?

Tinuke: I think it was just down to personal experience and looking at the stats. I didn't have a great experience giving birth to my son - this was in 2017. Then in 2018, we heard about the stats in the news for the first time. I was thinking, this is horrible - what's going on? Talking to other Black mothers, hearing their experiences, and just feeling like something needs to be done about it.

I'm not really a maths babe, although I am a self-proclaimed nerd. I'm not great at maths or stats, but when you look at those numbers, it's quite frightening to think that [Black women] don't account for a lot of births as a whole, but yet we’re so overrepresented in the statistics when it comes to death. Something sinister is going on behind that. I guess it was just to highlight the stats, highlight what's going on behind them, and support our community in making sure they have the right resources. 

Clotilde: To be honest, the reason why I do what I do with Five X More and why I've got into it is because Tinuke hit me up. Literally, it was a DM, and she said, let's do something about it. I worked in women's health at the time, specifically perinatal mental health. She worked with mums within her organization called Mums and Tea, and just said to me, let's do a one off event to raise awareness. I had the health professionals, she had the women, let's do that. And I kind of said, okay, yeah, let's raise awareness!

That's my journey into this. I just thought it was a one off raising awareness, and then we ended up building Five X More. I think what has kept us going now is the need. 

We’re talking to more women and seeing that there's actually a need for it. Now that we work in this field, there's so many things that we are unaware of that other people seem to know. Why did not know I could do this and I could do that? So for us now, it's trying to bring more awareness and access to services for women.

How has the public’s understanding of the disparities in maternal outcomes has changed since you started, and what myths or misconceptions still need to be addressed?

Clotilde: That Black women don't have positive births. It's a lie that if you have a white health professional, you will die or you will have a bad experience. With health professionals, the typical ones are that we have “African pelvises”. 

Another one is that we're strong so we can handle the pain.

Tinuke: What about when they said, when a girl was in labor, and the doctors said, “Oh, your body's doing the Black girl thing.” When a pregnant woman comes in and they present quite high, and then the baby, all of a sudden, descends and drops quite quickly. They call that the Black girl thing. 

Clotilde: I just think those stereotypes that go back to slavery still affect us. Still to this day, generally being strong, can handle more pain or not being articulate so half of the information that they are supposed to give us, they don't, because they're probably thinking, well, there's no point. They're not going to do anything with it so let's just make decisions on their behalf.

Now, I don't think they're doing that to harm us. I genuinely think they're doing it because they think it's best for us, because I assume they think we don't know our bodies and we don't know what's right and what we want. So I do think a lot of the things they do, they do on our behalf, trying to help us, but they're causing more harm.

As founders of Five X More, what have been the most rewarding moments in your journey so far?

Clotilde: It's through our report that the government committed to putting a target to ethnic minorities dying in pregnancy. Also, through our report that we launched

other hospitals were able to take the recommendations and the data to make better changes for black women in their hospitals. For us, those are some of the things that we're so happy that we're able to do. The testimony from the women, Black women are no longer being scared to give birth, or as scared, because they know they have resources and that the government and the hospitals are making changes where they need to. 

Tinuke: The fact that we have each other. When there's two of you, you can encourage each other. Sometimes when you're a solo founder, you're having conversations back and forth with yourself, but at least when there's one other person, it's quite rewarding. We're both going through it, and we're both committed to making the change. It's nice to have your person.

And what have been the biggest challenges? 

Clotilde: We have done a lot of work in this field. And I feel we still have to keep showing them that we're able and that we're creditable. 

Tinuke: The whole notion of having to work twice as hard. If it was any of our counterparts doing half as much work, they would have double, even triple the funding, and be everywhere. A very common misconception is that because we're black women, if we put in our names to something, we're going to do it to a T. So regardless of the fact that there's little to no funding on the outside, you will never know because we’re doing X, Y, Z, and what we need to do to help. 

You will never know what it’s like on the other side. It's a superpower, but it's also to our detriment. People just believe that you can just get on with it. You’ve done this with no funding, so you can do it again. That's quite challenging. 

We're not doing this work because we're trying to make money from Black women. We're doing this work because we want to create changes, but we also need to eat. 

Clotilde: Somehow I feel like we're having to beg to be in spaces. There will be an event, or a conversation about Black women and we’re having to beg to be a part of that conversation. Bring us to the table so we can relay information back to Black women.  We just want to know what's happening so we can feed it back to our community. There's so much stuff happening in the maternity world that you can't keep up. When you don't get invited, you don't know. But yet, when they want feedback from our community, they know how to find us. 

Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the future of Black maternal health in the UK, and where do you see Five X More in five years?

Tinuke: No times more, please! Thank you. The aim is to not exist. We exist because there's a problem. There's no need for us to be here. 

Clotilde: We're not the first people that have been speaking about it. There's so many people that have been doing this work for decades. Rome wasn't built in a day. We're not expecting it to just be a quick fix. But we're seeing progress, and we just hope that it will continue along that steady trajectory in the public sphere now. 

Health professionals are trying. People are trying. It might be a little bit slower than we would like, but I think things are moving. So hopefully in the next five to 10 years, this disparity will just be a thing of the past. We need equity. We need equality. We need things to be on par, because it just doesn't make sense why it exists in the first place. 

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Contact Five X More 

Website: https://fivexmore.org 

Email: info@fivexmore.org

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Donate & support Five X More: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=FEY6KMENKV22S 

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Participate in the 2025 Black Maternity Experiences Survey: https://qnbgyctb5ay.typeform.com/blackmesurvey25?typeform-source=fivexmore.org 

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