Too Many Women Dying in U.S. While Having Babies
March 12th, 2010Via: Time:
Amnesty International may be best known to American audiences for bringing to light horror stories overseas such as the disappearance of political activists in Argentina or the abysmal conditions inside South African prisons under apartheid. But in a new report on pregnancy and childbirth care in the U.S., Amnesty details the maternal health care crisis in this country as part of a systemic violation of women’s rights.
The report, titled “Deadly Delivery,” notes that the likelihood of a woman dying in childbirth in the U.S. is ?ve times greater than in Greece, four times greater than in Germany, and three times greater than in Spain. Every day in the U.S., more than two women die of pregnancy-related causes, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 births in 2006. (And as shocking as these figures are, Amnesty notes that the actual number of maternal deaths in the U.S. may be a lot higher since there are no federal requirements to report these outcomes and since data collection at the state and local levels needs to be improved.) “In the U.S., we spend more than any country on health care, yet American women are at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than in 40 other countries,” says Nan Strauss, the report’s co-author, who spent two years investigating the issue of maternal mortality worldwide. “We thought that was scandalous.”
According to Amnesty, which gathered data from many sources including the CDC, approximately half of the pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable, the result of systemic failures including barriers to accessing care; inadequate, neglectful, or discriminatory care; and overuse of risky interventions like inducing labor and delivering via cesarean section. “Women are not dying from complex, mysterious causes that we don’t know how to treat,” says Strauss. “Women are dying because it’s a fragmented system, and they are not getting the comprehensive services that they need.”
The report notes that black women in the U.S. are nearly four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, although they are no more likely to suffer certain complications like hemorrhage.
Research Credit: Becky
The Time article seemed short on specific details, so I tracked down the Amnesty International Report – Deadly Delivery.
According to the report, lack of prenatal care increased maternal mortality by 5.3 Times (not percent).
55 percent of maternal deaths occurred
between one and 42 days following birth (according to a CDC study they cite), so lack of follow-up care proves deadly as well.
So, on one level it looks like basic issues of health care access are driving this travesty.
I suspect there is something deeper going on, though. The demographics of these deaths align too nicely with the stated goals of eugenicists.
the deeper goings-on (other than the lack of access issues) are the gross and irresponsible overuse of interventions arising from the basic nature of birthing within a hospital, which is where the vast majority of american women find themselves in labor.
in every other developed country in the world–and in many less-developed than the US–midwives (read: low intervention providers) are the standard of care, and outcomes are better for both mother and baby. sometimes dramatically so. despite this, there is an active campaign in the US by various medical agencies to keep women birthing in hospitals (and in fear of safer alternatives) because it is such a lucrative business… and outcomes be damned.
don’t forget this line: “(And as shocking as these figures are, Amnesty notes that the actual number of maternal deaths in the U.S. may be a lot higher since there are no federal requirements to report these outcomes and since data collection at the state and local levels needs to be improved.)”
related: pregnancy may be hazardous to your liberty – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynn-m-paltrow/caution-pregnancy-may-be-_b_483131.html?ref=fb
But…but…but… American healthcare is the best in the world…!