Maternal Mortality Rates Rise in the U.S.

From the late 1970s through the 1990s, when I worked internationally on women’s health issues, alarm bells sounded regularly about the dramatic and unacceptable rate of maternal mortality in the so-called developing world. Today, those alarm bells are ringing again, but this time because of the rising maternal mortality rate (MMR) here in the U.S.
The MMR is defined as the number of registered maternal deaths due to birth or pregnancy related complications per 100,000 registered live births. Maternal death refers to “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.”
In an article published in The New York Times in September, Sabrina Tavernise pointed out that the reduction of maternal mortality worldwide in recent years can rightly be called a public health triumph. In my day, the MMR was extraordinary. An estimated half a million women died annually of preventable pregnancy-related problems. Today that number is thought to be approaching half of that.
But in the U.S. the maternal mortality rate has been rising at an alarming rate. A 2014 report in the Washington Post revealed that maternal deaths related to childbirth had reached its highest rate in a quarter of a century. A woman giving birth then was more likely to die than a woman giving birth in China, one study showed.
At that time, we were one of only eight cou...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - October 10, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Maternity Women Source Type: blogs