Helping All Moms Survive Labor and Delivery |
January 23 is Maternal Health Awareness Day—the one day a year where we highlight the maternal mortality crisis in the United States and advocate for improved care for moms everywhere. Maternal mortality is the death of a mother during pregnancy or birth, and maternal morbidity is when labor and delivery nearly cause death and result in serious health consequences. You might assume that, with our advanced medical technology, the United States would be a world leader in preventing maternal mortality, but it’s quite the opposite: Between 2003 and 2013, the US was one of only eight countries that saw an increase in maternal mortality nationwide (Hirshberg and Srinivas, 2017). In a lot of cases—approximately 28–40 percent—these deaths are entirely preventable (Clark and colleagues, 2008; Hirshberg and Srinivas, 2017). According to the CDC, those numbers decreased from 2008 to 2021, but then increased again in the following years after the onset COVID-19 pandemic. The million-dollar question: Why is this happening to our mothers, and how can we prevent it?
Maternal morbidity is most often caused by hemorrhage or bleeding, but can also be caused by hypertensive disorders, infection, or issues related to blood clots (Hirshberg and Srinivas, 2017). Various factors put one at risk for maternal morbidity, including both younger (< 20) and older (> 35) maternal age, lower socioeconomic status, higher rates of preexisting conditions, poor access to insurance, and starting prenatal care in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy (Creanga and colleagues, 2014, 2015; Hirshberg and Srinivas, 2017).
Importantly, Black women are three to four times more likely to have a pregnancy-related death or complications than women of any other demographic, including Hispanic women who are also overrepresented in low-income tax brackets in the United States (Hirshberg and Srinivas, 2017). In fact, Black women are seven times more likely to suffer from pregnancy-related death when compared with Chinese women or white women with a college degree (Singh, 2020). On top of that, while one third of these deaths were potentially preventable for all women, nearly half of the deaths of Black women were likely preventable (Berg and colleagues, 2005).
It isn’t completely clear why Black women suffer a higher likelihood of maternal death and........