Preventing Women’s Deaths From Pregnancy-Related Causes

Abstract

I t is no surprise to the informed American that the maternal mortality rate in the United States is tragically high, especially in light of the fact that we spend more dollars per birth than any other country (Rosenthal, 2013). Unfortunately, dollars spent do not translate to the best outcomes; in fact, our maternal mortality rate is substantially higher than the rate of any other developed country in the world (GBD 2015 Maternal Mortality Collaborators, 2016. Regardless of absolute numbers, any woman's death during pregnancy, childbirth, or afterward is a tragedy for her infant(s) and children, family, community, and the health care providers involved in her care. The problem of maternal mortality in the United States has received increasing scrutiny in recent years by researchers, the press, and legislators because of the apparent rise in rates since the early 2000s and the disparities in rates by race and ethnicity. Non-Hispanic black women have a 3.4 times higher mortality ratio than non-Hispanic white women (Creanga, Syverson, Seed, & Callaghan, 2017).