As global maternal mortality declines, the U.S. is the only developed country where it’s on the rise.
An American woman today is 50 percent more likely to die in childbirth than her own mother. Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related causes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently added yet another heartbreaking number to the list: 84 percent of maternal deaths in our country are preventable.
For years, U.S. maternity care has been defined by abysmal health outcomes, awful patient experiences, and sky-high costs.
According to the World Health Organization, one of the most powerful ways to reduce maternal mortality can be summed up in a word: midwives.
In fact, one study published in The Lancet found that including more midwives in health care systems could prevent more than 80 percent of maternal and infant deaths. There is a lot of work to do on this front. Right now, there are only four midwives per 1,000 births in the U.S., while many European countries have five to 10 times as many.
Simply making it through pregnancy and childbirth alive is not good enough; we need a higher standard.
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