United States maternal death rate the same as Belarus
Categories: In the news, That's entertainment
Lying in writhing pain on a sterile table, I remember I didn't care if I died. I remember screwing my eyes shut, thinking fiercely to hold that thought, because it was an anomaly. The strength of the pain at that moment, was higher than my desire to live. I knew it was probably the only time in my life I'd feel that way.
But the pain went away, thank god, with the help of breathing and contraction breaks and finally, an epidural. And now I've forgotten it completely, and am so glad I didn't die during childbirth. But there are still way, way too many women who do.
I don't know anyone -- friend or acquaintance or friend of a friend - who has died in childbirth. According to new research, though, 1 in 4800 US women die from childbirth or complications thereof. That's a startling contrast to the country with the lowest maternal death rate in the world, Ireland, where 1 in 47,600 women will die of childbirth related complications.
Reasons cited for the relatively high American maternal death rate include blood clots, eclampsia and pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, and complications of medical conditions.
The US rates in around the same ranking as Belarus, which further surprised me. Not as surprising (but completely perplexing) -- the death rate among American black woman was almost four times as high as that of white women.
But the pain went away, thank god, with the help of breathing and contraction breaks and finally, an epidural. And now I've forgotten it completely, and am so glad I didn't die during childbirth. But there are still way, way too many women who do.
I don't know anyone -- friend or acquaintance or friend of a friend - who has died in childbirth. According to new research, though, 1 in 4800 US women die from childbirth or complications thereof. That's a startling contrast to the country with the lowest maternal death rate in the world, Ireland, where 1 in 47,600 women will die of childbirth related complications.
Reasons cited for the relatively high American maternal death rate include blood clots, eclampsia and pre-eclampsia, hemorrhage, and complications of medical conditions.
The US rates in around the same ranking as Belarus, which further surprised me. Not as surprising (but completely perplexing) -- the death rate among American black woman was almost four times as high as that of white women.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ann Adams 10-14-2007 @ 11:31AM
Not so perplexing when you consider poverty and the lack of medical care.
Reply
Leah 10-14-2007 @ 12:33PM
Don't forget the cesarean rate, obesity, complications due to medical interventions (which cause some of the issues like blood clots). And here's the kicker, the care that tends to equal the lowest maternal and infant mortaility rates? Midwifery care. Check out the other countries like Denmark, Sweden, etc. We have a lot to learn.
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Uly 10-14-2007 @ 2:16PM
What Ann said.
Reply
Ann Adams 10-14-2007 @ 2:58PM
Here's a link which goes into the causes a little more.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/14/4535/
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Ann Adams 10-14-2007 @ 3:14PM
Leah, I just went back and read your comment again. You'll get no argument from me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
Unfortunately, at least where I live, the poor have no access to midwives. We do provide pre-natal clinics and our Public Health works hard on provding nutrition information, etc. but I'm sure the standard of care isn't equal across the board.
I live in California. I have no idea what the other states do. If we're not doing enough, chances are many of the states are worse.
Somehow you and the other advocates of midwifery need to combat the misinformation which abounds and get the word out.
You'll have a long, uphill, struggle of course in convincing the medical profession and, worse, the government which pays for medical care for the poor.
It isn't enough for those of us lucky enough to own a computer to nod our heads in agreement.
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SKL 10-15-2007 @ 11:50PM
I think if you look into Irish maternity care, you will not find that all pregnant women there have access to "state-of-the-art" care; from what I've heard, things are pretty bad there for the common folk. I think part of the US problem is our offering of high-cost medical interventions such as fertility treatments, unneeded c-sections, induced labor to meet someone's preferred schedule, and others. Another consideration is that some high-risk US pregnancies may have ended (or the mother may have died) prior to childbirth if there had been no "state-of-the-art" medical intervention; so these deaths would not be classified as deaths in childbirth in countries where such intervention was not widely available. The high incidence of obesity and high blood pressure is also a cause of quite a few deaths.
I don't have an answer for why the number of deaths in childbirth is far higher for blacks than whites - if that statistic is accurate. Possibly blacks, on average, don't seek the same level of medical care for high-risk pregnancies. But besides that, I think blacks have a higher incidence of diabetes and high blood pressure, if my memory serves me right, and these contribute to complications in childbirth.
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