U.S. Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World

[riversedge]

U.S. Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World

https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world

May 12, 201710:28 AM ET



The story of Lauren Bloomstein illustrates a disparity in our nation's health care system, where primary focus is given to newborn babies, but often ignores the mothers.
Courtesy of the Bloomstein Family



NPR and ProPublica teamed up for a six-month long investigation on maternal mortality in the U.S. Among our key findings:

More American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than any other developed country. Only in the U.S. has the rate of women who die been rising.
There's a hodgepodge of hospital protocols for dealing with potentially fatal complications, allowing for treatable complications to become lethal.
Hospitals — including those with intensive care units for newborns — can be woefully unprepared for a maternal emergency.......................



Kamala Verified account @KamalaHarris
16m16 minutes ago

America’s maternal mortality rate is the highest in the developed world, while black mother are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white mothers. We must reverse this trend.

Link to tweet

Maternal deaths are rising in America. Best Mother's Day gift, reverse that trend.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/05/10/maternal-deaths-mothers-mortality-column/595818002/

Allison Schneider, Opinion contributor Published 1:39 p.m. ET May 10, 2018 | Updated 9:51 a.m. ET May 13, 2018
Maternal death should not be a routine part of medical training. We must fix the system that has failed mothers and those of us who care for them.


In medicine, death is a reality. But in obstetrics, where patients are relatively young and healthy, the death of a mother should be so rare that you might never see one in training. However, that is not the case in this country, where the maternal death rate is the highest among all developed nations.

I traveled to Washington recently with Dr. Eve Zaritsky, my supervising physician, to join more than 600 other obstetrician/gynecologists to push for bills that would address this crisis. It seemed that every one of us, from veterans to young doctors still in training, had a patient story to share.
............................................


Our patient is now among the roughly 700 women who die of pregnancy-related causes every year in the United States. Yet this number alone masks several disturbing trends.

More: The Senate celebrates Sen. Tammy Duckworth, abandons other moms

More: Look for politics to shift as young people increasingly support abortion rights

As the recent "Lost Mothers" investigation by NPR and ProPublica has noted, America's maternal mortality rates are not only high, they are rising.

In fact, the United States saw a 26.6% increase in maternal deaths from 2000 to 2014, according to a recent study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. In contrast, maternal mortality rates in other similarly developed nations decreased dramatically during this same period.

Moreover, marked racial disparities make these trends even more distressing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American women are almost four times more likely to die of pregnancy complications.

And in our nation’s capital, with its large African-American and Medicaid population, women are twice as likely to die due to pregnancy than the average American woman.

Finally, and no less troubling, ....................

Link to tweet

[S.E. TN Liberal]

1. We're Number 1, we're number 1...

...and we will stay this pitiful as long as we keep letting conservatives decide our health care options.

[Turbineguy]

2. In centuries past they lacked the knowledge, tools and drugs to stop that.

This is self-inflicted. Well, republican inflicted.

[mopinko]

3. they should look at home births.

i had 4 of my 5 kids at home, and they took very good care of ME.

[The Polack MSgt]

4. HOLEEE SHIT... kick and rec for eyeballs

[RainCaster]

5. This comes from the GOP who is so focused on abortion

That they do not care at all for the women or their bodies. Sad.

[Doodley]

6. I am disgusted at the callousness of a healthcare system that underserves tens of millions, in

the richest nation on the planet.

[alarimer]

7. How much of it is due to our fucked-up health care system?

Having a job might get you health insurance, but it's only with the ACA that health care plans were required to cover pregnancy. So for decades we had an underinsurance problem in addition to many millions who lacked insurance altogether.

The disparities among groups might be attributable to difference in health coverage. Without a true universal health system, these differences are going to persist and the outcomes will not improve.

[area51]

8. Horrific stats in a country that claims to be first world.

We need single payer health care now!