Death in Childbirth

I taught a course last year in global maternal mortality so I have some idea of what I'm talking about here. Childbirth is dangerous for women because, for one thing, thanks to evolution giving us big brains, the baby's head is too big for the birth canal. However, there are other complications of pregnancy that can occur. In Europe in the 19th Century, as it became common for women to give birth in hospitals, infectious disease killed a lot of mothers, thanks to the doctors transferring pathogens on their unwashed hands and unsterile instruments. Many a family was bereaved by maternal death, but it has become rare in most of the wealthy countries today. With, as I expect you have already guessed, one exception.

Maternal mortality in the U.S. has long been far more common here than in comparable nations, and this has in large part been due to a huge racial disparity. Black women are much more likely to die in childbirth than white women. But now it's gotten worse. I'm just going to post a press release I got this morning, and let it speak for itself.

Shocking Rise in Maternal Mortality, With Black Moms at Greatest Risk, Underscores Need for Congress to Pass Momnibus Act and Secure Access to Abortion Care

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 17, 2023

CONTACT: Magen Eissenstat, 202/371-1996

 

Statement of leaders of MomsRising, the online and on-the-ground organization of more than one million mothers and their families, on the National Center for Health Statistics data released yesterday, showing a dramatic rise in maternal mortality and disparities in the United States in 2021:

 

“This is an emergency. Too many moms are losing their lives during pregnancy and childbirth in this country. Our nation’s maternal health crisis got appreciably worse in 2021, with huge disparities and Black women suffering the worst outcomes. Data released yesterday by the National Center for Health Statistics/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 1,205 women died of maternal causes in the United States in 2021, up sharply from 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019. (Those deaths are among women who were pregnant or had been pregnant within the last 42 days, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.) The maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic white women.

 

“It is appalling that our already-high maternal mortality rate is getting worse, as are the disparities. It’s long past time lawmakers recognize this as the emergency that it is. The Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act will soon be reintroduced in both chambers of Congress, and its passage should be an immediate priority so we can provide more funds to strengthen federal maternal health programs, address social determinants of health, support diversification of the perinatal health workforce, provide grants to improve maternal mental health, support anti-bias trainings for health care professionals, and more.”

 

-Statement of Monifa Bandele, Chief Strategy Officer, MomsRising

 

“Certainly COVID is part of the reason maternal health outcomes in the United States worsened in 2021, but we had the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation before the pandemic struck. Enactment of the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which will save lives and improve the health of mothers and babies, is long overdue.

 

“But there is more we need lawmakers to do. The shameful SCOTUS ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the state abortion bans and restrictions it allowed are sure to exacerbate our already-devastating maternal health crisis. They have resulted in women being denied not just abortion care but also birth control, care for miscarriages, medications they need and have long taken, and other essential services. Low-income women and moms, women of color, young, rural and immigrant women, people with disabilities, and those who are LGBTQIA+ are suffering the most.

 

“America’s moms call on lawmakers at every level to prioritize maternal health and secure access to abortion care. Improving women’s health and addressing our maternal health crisis should be our highest priority.”

 

-Statement of Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Executive Director and CEO, MomsRising

 

# # # #