Elaine Welteroth is pregnant with her second child.
The “Project Runway” judge has confirmed she’s expecting another baby two years after she welcomed her son Silver with her husband Jonathan Singletary in 2022. She broke the news during a fundraiser for her birthFUND charity — which helps gives pregnant women access to midwifery services —and she was amazed by the timing.
“This was not part of my plan. This is God’s plan. But as we were building birthFUND, I happened to find out that my baby’s going to be part of the first birthFund cohort. So, let’s go! Let’s go … ” Welteroth said during the event on June 13.
“[I feel] so good and so much better than I did last time because this time I have a midwife from the beginning. Last time I didn’t even discover midwifery until my third trimester,” she told People.
“I didn’t even work up the nerve to do a home birth until week 36. So this time, my experience of pregnancy has transformed because I have access,” Welteroth added.
“I think I’m just in such a different stage of life. My mindset is in a different place,” Welteroth continued. “I found out about this pregnancy when I was in the beginning of building birthFUND. I was building my team. I was making hires. I was working around the clock, literally 16-hour days, just back-to-back.”
“I guess this is part of the bigger master plan, and it deepened the meaning of this work because it felt even more personal. I’m, like, wow, these families that we’re supporting, they’re going to be giving birth at the same time as me. We’re going to be doing this together,” she said.
Welteroth previously opened up about her plans for the charity, revealing she wants to help keep pregnant women safe and provide them with knowledge and advice on options before and after the birth.
“We deserve to make informed decisions about our health care, and unfortunately, our system has been set up in a way that’s kept us really ill-informed about our own bodies and our options and access to resources …” Welteroth stated.
“Our hope is that we can help reframe birth as a joyful, sacred experience because it can be … But it’s also not just for delivery; postpartum support is vital,” she said. “I learned so much from my postpartum doula about how to take care of my baby, how to take care of myself and how to nurture myself back to health in order to be able to nurture this baby …”
“What’s been missing from this whole maternal health conversation is a focus on solutions,” Welteroth continued. “There’s a certain level of awareness now, but how many times can you hear these sad stories and these alarming stats before you just shut down?”
“We need to galvanise the community around this call to action where people can actually help and do something about this and make change in real time. To me, that’s what’s been missing, and that’s why birthFUND was born,” she told Harper’s Bazaar.
