In the US, too many moms are dying around the time of childbirth. Every year, more than 700 mothers die from complications related to pregnancy and delivery, leaving behind grieving families as well as urgent policy questions about how we – as a country – can do better.
Between the 1980s and 2010, the maternal mortality rate doubled in the US. Clearly, birth should be safer for moms in the US. All moms. But it’s not. Some moms are at greater risk.
That’s the topic of this week’s Healthcare Triage.
This episode was written in conjunction with Katy Kozhimannil and Rachel Hardeman, who are 2016 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders fellows. Interdisciplinary Research Leaders is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation led by the University of Minnesota.
Resources used in the creation of this video:
- Meeting the Challenges of Measuring and Preventing Maternal Mortality in the United States
- Lost Mothers
- Here’s One Issue Blue and Red States Agree On: Preventing Deaths of Expectant and New Mothers
- Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System
- NYC 2008-2012, Severe Maternal Morbidity
- Pregnancy-Related Mortality in the United States, 2011-2013
- Global, regional, and national levels of maternal mortality, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015
- The Black–White Disparity in Pregnancy-Related Mortality From 5 Conditions: Differences in Prevalence and Case-Fatality Rates
- Deadly Delivery
- Separate and unequal: Structural racism and infant mortality in the US
- Structural Racism and Supporting Black Lives — The Role of Health Professionals
- Confronting Institutional Racism
- Reduction of Peripartum Racial and Ethnic Disparities: A Conceptual Framework and Maternal Safety Consensus Bundle
