‘Lucky’ Alexis Ohanian Narrates Wife Serena Williams’s Life-Threatening Childbirth To Shed Light on a Realistic American Problem

When it comes to his family, Serena Williams’s businessman husband knows no limitations. Known to be a devoted father to Olympia, Ohanian previously recalled how difficult it was for Serena to bring her on this earth. While they embraced parenthood with open arms, Ohanian also spoke about the flaws of the system. Now a proud father of two, Serena Williams’s husband recalls how his company helped him to make his parenthood easier than others.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian joined Rainn Wilson in his podcast to speak about having a child during his Reddit days, his wife’s challenging pregnancy journey, and more. “We experienced the version of it (talking about pregnancy scares with Rainn Wilson) with Serena’s health scare when Olympia was born.

“And yes, we are very fortunate to live in a country where we have quite modernized healthcare over the years, and it is still, to your point a very serious, there is a tremendous amount of risk disproportionately so for women of color, but like tremendous amount of risk period.“- said Ohanian. Serena’s husband recalled the horrifying moment his wife encountered during her first childbirth.

Williams has a disease called pulmonary embolism, which creates blood clots in a blood vessel and then travels to the lung’s artery, forming a blockage. Right after Olympia’s birth, Williams faced certain complications from this disease but the nurses there were too reluctant to respond to her needs, making it dangerous for Williams’s life. In Channing Chowder’s Pivot Podcast, Ohanian spoke about how he requested the nurses during his wife’s childbirth to pay attention to her.

Not only this but Ohanian further talked about paternity leaves in his conversation. “And I came out of that, very lucky because I owned this was when I was at Reddit and I had a paternity leave plan. And I could be basically all hands on deck for my partner during that time”- said Ohanian. The Reddit co-founder reveals that paternity leave for a father in the United States depends on various factors.

Despite the Family and Medical Leave Act guaranteeing 12 weeks of unpaid and job-protected leaves for new parents, it also depends on the employer’s policy. Alexis Ohanian mentioned that since his company Reddit had that policy, he could be with his family and help Serena during her critical post-pregnancy journey.

Alexis Ohanian’s revelations speak about how gender roles impact such policies in a country. While he admits his challenges in the podcast, he also spoke about the reason that according to him has fuelled such problems for new fathers.

Serena Williams’s husband believes “stigma” stops society from granting paid paternity leaves to men

In 2020, Alexis Ohanian wrote an article in the New York Times, delving deeper into his first child and paternity leaves. While addressing his challenges, he also analyzed the reason for which the situation is so.

“The short answer is stigma. Men are conditioned to be breadwinners, exclusively — and another mouth to feed calls for more bread on the table (to say nothing of college tuition) — so off to work we go. Our sense of duty is often fear-based: Men assume their bosses will frown on paternity leave, so we don’t dare to go there.

“A recent study conducted by my friends at PL+US, a national paid-leave advocacy group, found that 84 percent of expectant fathers plan to take leave, but only half believe their employer supports them. Nearly a third of dads think that taking leave could negatively impact their career. We could miss out on a promotion. We could become obsolete. We could get fired. Career fear is powerful”- wrote Ohanian.

Nevertheless, Alexis Ohanian’s revelations bring out the challenges of the new fathers to accompany their wives and the family during such a critical time. It also represents how modern he is, in terms of taking full care of his wife and his child. This beautiful mindset is what makes Alexis Ohanian a desirable husband and a great father to their fans.