Report cites staggering level of US maternal mortality

[Hannah Bell]

Women in the US have a greater chance of dying from complications of pregnancy and childbirth than women in 40 other countries. A report from Amnesty International (AI), “Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA,” shows that US maternal mortality ratios have soared in recent years, rising from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 lives births in 1987, to 13.3 deaths per live births in 2006.

The AI report says that “half of these deaths could be prevented if maternal health care were available, accessible and of good quality for all women in the USA.” Poverty and discrimination play a key role in denying women access to decent care related to pregnancy, delivery and in the days following birth, the report notes...

Deaths from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications in the US are five times more likely than in Greece, four times more likely than in Germany, and three times more likely than in Spain. These differences are likely even more severe, because only six states—Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington—are legally bound to record maternal deaths.

The four most seen causes of maternal death in the US are embolism, a blood clot that blocks a major blood vessel (20 percent); hemorrhaging, severe bleeding (17 percent), pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, disorders associated with high blood pressure (16 percent); infection (13 percent); and cardiomyopathy, heart muscle disease (8 percent).

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/mate-a14.shtml


Note the time frame of the increase in maternal deaths -- coincident with stagnating/declining income, a rise in the percentage of uninsured, & a rise in the incidence of poverty -- under the new neoliberal economic regime.

[Hannah Bell]

1. kick

[RayOfHope]

2. I read something not too long ago that part of this statistic is also due to previous c-sections

Its risky when the placenta attaches over the c-section scar, and the risk goes up with each prior c-section. Its pretty widely known the US has a ridiculously high c-section rate.

[amborin]

3. bookmarking; ny times today said Lancet study says world wide maternal mortality was decreasing