Originally appeared on E! Online
Tatyana Ali is still reeling from the “traumatic” birth of her oldest son Edward.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum detailed the experience, sharing that she was “held down” as she delivered her and husband Vaughn Rasberry’s first child in 2016.
"I mean, I'll be real with you: They pushed him back inside me," Tatyana told Danielle Fishel on the April 27 episode of her Pod Meets World podcast. "My baby was all the way crowned."
The 47-year-old—also mom to son Alejandro, 6—went on to clarify that the maneuver was “not a real procedure,” explaining, “In my records, it shows that [Edward] goes from the lowest station—I saw his hair, I touched his hair—to the highest station, and it doesn't say how that happened.”
“It's an incredibly dangerous thing that they did,” she continued. “They could have snapped his neck. But this is after hours of them holding me down, not allowing me to move."
READ Why Tatyana Ali Says It Was "Crazy" Returning to Her Fresh Prince Roots for Bel-Air
Tatyana also said that her birth plan “wasn’t followed” by the doctors despite having a “really healthy pregnancy.”
As she put it, "All of that changed once we got into the hospital.”
After the birth, Edward, now 9, spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) due to complications Tatyana attributed to his delivery.
“He couldn't pee on his own for a long time, about five or six days,” she explained. “Actually, it was a pediatric urologist who is the only one who came to my side and said, ‘I saw what happened during your birth, the things that resulted in this emergency C-section.’ She said, ‘I think the traumatic nature of his birth is what is causing this.’”
Tatyana has since turned the ordeal into an opportunity for advocacy after learning her experience is actually “very commonplace,” especially among people of color.
"It's been happening for a very long time," she shared. "Black women are three to four times more likely to die in childbirth. And I think a lot of times people go, 'Oh, well, those are other health risks.'"
And now, Tatyana sees the message as her mission.
“I'm supposed to say something because all the people I'm talking to, no one puts a mic in their face,” she concluded. “It kind of just was like, ‘God, I'm going to take all the things you give me—the good and the bad—and do something with it.’”
For more stars who have detailed frightening health scares, keep reading…
PHOTOS Jamie Foxx
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
