The Duchess of Sussex opens up about navigating motherhood, entrepreneurship, and a rare postpartum health scare: postpartum preeclampsia.
With Black Maternal Health Week approaching, Meghan Markle is adding her voice to a conversation that too often goes unheard. On the first episode of her new podcast, “Confessions of a Female Founder,” the Duchess of Sussex shared a deeply personal chapter of her motherhood journey in conversation with Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd.
“We both had very similar experiences — though we didn’t know each other at the time — with postpartum, and we both had preeclampsia. Postpartum preeclampsia,” Markle revealed.
According to the Mayo Clinic, postpartum preeclampsia is a “rare condition that occurs when you have high blood pressure and excess protein in your urine soon after childbirth.” While preeclampsia typically develops during pregnancy and resolves shortly after delivery, postpartum preeclampsia can arise between 48 hours and six weeks after giving birth.
“It’s so rare and so scary,” Markle said. “And you’re still trying to juggle all of these things, and the world doesn’t know what’s happening quietly. And in the quiet, you’re still trying to show up for people – mostly for your children — but those things are huge medical scares.”
The condition disproportionately affects Black women. According to the Preeclampsia Foundation, Black mothers are 60% more likely than white mothers to develop preeclampsia or related complications. Structural gaps in Black women’s postpartum care further widen the risk, contributing to a maternal mortality rate that remains alarmingly high. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes than any other group.
While Markle didn’t disclose whether her diagnosis came after the birth of Prince Archie, now 5 years old, or 3-year-old Princess Lilibet, she did reflect on the duality of being a mother and an entrepreneur—how the personal and the professional often blur.
“What I do love the most about having young kids, in this chapter while I’m building [business], is the perspective that it brings because you’re building something while your child’s going through potty training…and both are just as important…It’s like, ‘Great, OK, where’s the Cheerios? Well done,’” she said. “And then you’re championing your team 10 minutes later about something that is really high value for the world. In your own world, that’s super high value. And in [Lili’s] world, that’s super high value.”
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