Today I am reminded about the faces behind the numbers of the maternal mortality crisis here in America. I talk about the high maternal death rate in this country all the time, but it is different when it is someone you know… A mother of a past student who I kept in contact with, passed away recently from complications after the birth of twins. As I sit and hold my infant son, I think to myself how these two little ones will never know their mother’s touch, her voice…her laugh. Keisha (pseudonym) had a distinctive laugh, it was tooth-full and rich, always accompanied with a hand raise. We connected outside of our parent-teacher roles, as black women in helping fields (she was a social worker), we had a lot in common. She had a calm, easy-going manner unless someone messed with her baby! She did not play, when it came to her only daughter at the time. I know how much she loved her daughter and how much she fought for her daughter to receive the best education possible. So, I know what an amazing mom she would have been to these two babies. There was a 13 year gap between her oldest daughter and these two little ones, I can only imagine how excited she must have been to feel them moving inside her body, rubbing her belly, talking to them… The anticipation she must have felt going into the hospital believing that she would see them soon and get to hold them. This very real person was a mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, aunt, and friend. Her story is one of the many of that the following statistics capture…
The US is the only developed nation with a RISING maternal mortality rate. Since 1990, maternal deaths have increased from 12.4 per every 100,000 to 18.5 per every 100,000. For African American women we were at 18.6 deaths per 100,000 back in 1990 , in 2010 we had reached 34.8 deaths per 100,000 according to a study by the CDC.
Why are these numbers so high when we are considered to have some of the most top notch health care available??? Too much of anything is not good. I believe as women our bodies were created to give birth. If complications arise, then we are blessed to live in a country where we have ready access to medical interventions. But there is no need for medical interventions if things are progressing normally. One of the issues is that we are so removed from birth and what it looks like that we don’t know what a normal uninterrupted birth looks like.
In terms of African-American women, we often have to engage with a system that we don’t feel understands or speaks to us. We often receive lower quality care than our Caucasian counterparts. In this 2013 report, it found that African American women in NY were dying at a rate of 79 deaths per 100,000 compared to 10 deaths per 100,000 in Caucasian women. The author attributed that higher rate to an increased number of C-sections, poor quality prenatal and postpartum care, and being overweight (and the health complications that tends to come with that)… I don’t know or have all the answers, I have my suspicions as to why our numbers are so much higher (even when corrected for education and SES) but that is not why I was writing this post in the first place…I have thrown a lot of numbers out, but I want to again return to my friend. The real reason I started this post in the first place…
My friend Keisha, whose children no longer have a mother. Who has become one of these statistics. She is real, the hurt over her loss is real. Sometimes it is very easy to sit and spit out numbers, much harder to sit with the grief of a lost friend and the lifelong ramifications for her children…. it was easier to remove myself and start to quote different studies…I’m a doc student, it’s what I do. But, I really wanted to take a moment and ask all readers of this blog to take a moment of silence, say a prayer, send light, hold her in your thoughts for a moment and remember that behind every number, every statistic is a real person.