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Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted that pregnancy is “not a life-threatening illness.”
The Texas Republican was writing about a pill taken to end a pregnancy, but his comments were quickly met by an online barrage of comments and horrifying stories from women who had nearly died during pregnancy or childbirth.
In the United States, too often, pregnancy and childbirth are life-threatening events. The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality among the world’s richest countries.
This is unacceptable.
For more than a decade, the U.S. government failed to release statistics on maternal deaths during pregnancy and childbirth. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally did so early this year.
In 2018, 17.4 maternal deaths occurred per 100,000 live births. In that year, 658 women died, according to figures the CDC released in January. The figure includes deaths during pregnancy, at birth, or within 42 days of birth.
The maternal mortality rate for Black women was more than twice that of white women.
Overall, the maternal mortality rate has more than doubled since 1987.
Tragically, nearly two-thirds of these deaths are preventable, according to a CDC report.
Although data is sparse, pregnant women in the U.S. and around the world are catching COVID-19. Initial reports in the U.S. indicate that approximately 8 percent of pregnant or postpartum women with COVID-19 have severe disease and approximately 1 percent are critically ill, the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology reports.
Each year, about 65,000 women nearly die during pregnancy and childbirth, NPR reported. NPR and ProPublica undertook a review of records and social media in 2017 to compile data.
They found that American women are more than three times as likely to die as Canadian women and six times as likely to die as Scandinavians. In every other wealthy country, and many less affluent ones, maternal mortality rates were falling while they were increasing in the U.S.
There are many, interwoven reasons for the high maternal mortality rate in this country. Women are giving birth later in their lives. Roughly half of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned, so expectant mothers have often failed to address chronic health issues. Many women, especially those without health insurance, struggle to get consistent, coordinated care during their pregnancy. And, shockingly, many health providers don’t recognize serious pregnancy and childbirth complications, according to NPR.
Experts point to infant mortality for lessons on how to lessen maternal mortality.
There has been a lot of focus nationally on reducing infant mortality and, a result, the rate has dropped. Some worry that the well-placed focus on babies has diminished the attention on expectant and new mothers.
“We worry a lot about vulnerable little babies,” Barbara Levy, vice president for health policy/advocacy at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told NPR. Meanwhile, “we don’t pay enough attention to those things that can be catastrophic for women.”
As a result, many federal programs, including Medicaid, devote resources and attention to fetal health, but little to maternal health.
A more balanced approach would start by ensuring women have access to health care before they become pregnant. It would also include better symptom monitoring during pregnancy and after birth.
“The only way we’ll reduce maternal mortality is by valuing women’s health for itself, whether or not a woman happens to be pregnant,” Eugene Declercq, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, told Vox. “That way, women will begin their pregnancies in a healthier state and be well supported after they’ve had their baby.”
Declercq was one of the researchers who drew attention to the rising U.S. maternal mortality rate several years ago.
So, we’ll revise Cruz’s message: Pregnancy should not be a life-threatening illness.
