CA decided it was tired of women bleeding to death in childbirth-maternal mortality 1/3 national av

[niyad]

***********Mothers die too often because women’s health isn’t valued in the US ***** (and the latest puke assault on women's health care will make things even worse!!)

(this is a lengthy, extremely important read)


California decided it was tired of women bleeding to death in childbirth
The maternal mortality rate in the state is a third of the American average. Here's why.



Kristen Terlizzi woke up on July 16, 2014, in the intensive care unit at Stanford University to the news that the placenta connecting her to the child she'd just given birth to had spread like a cancer through her entire abdomen. Six weeks earlier, Terlizzi, then 32, had been diagnosed with placenta accreta, a condition that can cause the placenta to grow out of control. In a normal pregnancy, the placenta develops inside the uterus, attaches to the uterine wall, and then is flushed out of the body after the birth.

In accreta, which doctors believe is most often caused by scarring from prior cesarean sections (over half of which are unnecessary), the placenta sticks around and embeds. The condition was exceedingly rare in the 1950s, occurring in only one in 30,000 deliveries in the US. Today, because of the rise in C-sections, it shows up in about one in 500 births. One in 14 American women with accreta die, usually from hemorrhaging too much blood. Childbirth is one of the most common reasons women go into hospitals, and yet the American health care system handles complicated pregnancies with a stunning lack of preparation and precision. Put simply, ************women who give birth in the US have a greater risk of dying relative to other rich countries — and the problem has been growing worse at a time when America’s peers have continued to make pregnancy safer. *********

. . . . .

Her pregnancy was so exceptionally complicated, it inspired a scientific journal case study. But it’s also emblematic of how unpredictably dangerous birth can be, even for healthy women — and how the deadliest pregnancy complications are survivable when hospitals prepare for them.
The Stanford doctors and nurses who treated her were ready with a precise set of steps to manage her care. Among them: hemorrhage guidelines created by a doctor named David Lagrew as part of Stanford’s California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC), a revolutionary initiative to make births safer for moms in the state. A decade into their project, they’ve proved that even within America’s imperfect health system, death in childbirth is not an inevitability.
. . . .

California has managed to buck America’s grim maternal death trend. In the US, childbirth has been growing more dangerous recently. Maternal mortality — defined as the death of a mother from pregnancy-related complications while she’s carrying or within 42 days after birth — in the US soared by 27 percent, from 19 per 100,000 to 24 per 100,000, between 2000 and 2014.
That’s more than three times the rate of the United Kingdom, and about eight times the rates of Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, according to the OECD. It's a stunning example of how poorly the American health care system stacks up against its developed peers. More women in labor or brand new mothers die here than in any other high-income country. And the CDC Foundation estimates that 60 percent of these deaths are preventable.

. . . .

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/6/29/15830970/women-health-care-maternal-mortality-rate

[hatrack]

1. Wow, science!

Who knew?

[niyad]

2. and caring about women--what a concept!

[hatrack]

5. Indeed yes!

WHO life expectancy by country 2015 - the US came in at 31, just behind Costa Rica and just ahead of Cuba.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_World_Health_Organization_.282015.29

Freedumb!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Thank you for posting this very important article, my dear niyad!

I just read it this morning on Facebook.

MY GOD.

I had never heard of placenta accreta. What a horrifying condition.

Thank you for spreading the word.

K&R

[niyad]

4. you are most welcome. I was horrified when I read that, although I already knew that

the US maternal mortality rate is about the worst in all the advanced nations.

as the article points out, the lack of interest in women's health care is appalling. and it is only going to get worse if the woman-hating asshole pukes have their way.

[Solly Mack]

6. I was working in ICU one night when a 23 years old woman was brought up

from maternity. She had a stroke while giving birth. The woman had undiagnosed preeclampsia. She was in a coma. She was not likely to come out of it without damage and, in fact, never came out of it.

Almost everyone - nurses, doctors, aides - that came into the room kept saying "At least the baby survived. She would have wanted that. Thank god." Or some version it.

I finally snapped and said, "Yes. How fortunate for the child to grow up and know it killed its own mother."

Not exactly fair but to continually dismiss the life of the woman that way pissed me off. To talk as if they knew what the comatose woman wanted or would have preferred. The whole she might be dead but look what the good lord blessed her with thinking infuriates me.

[niyad]

7. how utterly horrible!! but a stunning example of how little women are valued.

[niyad]

8. . . ..

[Wounded Bear]

9. K & R ......for visibility...

The RW push to take us back to the 1800's regarding women's health care must be stopped.

Thanks for the story. If allowed, things do tend to get better through science and medical technology. Religious fanaticism tends to retard progress, not help it.