Happy Wednesday Healthcare Advocates

Please enter requests for research using the comment button at the bottom of this newsletter. Remember our advocacy educates our representatives and lets them know what we want them to do for us.

Items in work are prison healthcare (a hot mess) and rural healthcare (another hot mess). If you have ideas that could improve those situations please use the comment button below to share.

Maternal Mortality

We have already learned that if you become pregnant in 25 of the 50 US states that have abortion bans your risk of serious complication and death increases dramatically. Today we will examine maternal mortality.

Maternal mortality is one of the important quality metrics of a healthcare system. As we have mentioned in previous articles, the US lags behind our industrialized peer nations and it is growing worse year by year. For example, according to the CDC (link) the maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019. Quoting from the report “In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women (26.6). “

Here is a link to a World Bank table of maternal mortality for a wide variety of countries up to 2020. Many countries are in the single digits. We are now at 32.9 and Black women at 69.9. Germany, 4: France 8:, Japan 4:. What is wrong with this picture?

The US is quickly becoming an unsafe place for young people to start families.

The Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act (S.1606 and H.R.3305) has just been introduced to address this disparity. The bill actually addresses all women, not just black women. It creates a task force to address root causes of maternal mortality across the nation. It works to mitigate social determinants of health locally, extends WIC, so there is nutrition support for mothers and children. It provides for tele-health, the list goes on and on. In fact you can read the summary of the 13 bills it represents here. It is shameful that the maternal mortality rate is as high as it is in the US and a double shame that it is more than double for black women. Let’s let our senators and representatives know we want them to support this bill.

ACTION:

Here is a sample text to use if you call or email your representative and senators (links in the reference section). If you prefer use RESISTBOT to send the message below by texting SIGN PVLFOM to 50409.

“I am your constituent in [zipcode] and I just learned that the US maternal mortality rate is 32.9 deaths/100,000 and 69.9 if you’re black. Japan and Germany have maternal mortality rates of 4 and France is 8. Our healthcare system is not protecting mothers the way it should. I want you to co-sponsor and actively support the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act (S.1606 and H.R.3305). Mom’s need help and you can give it to them.”