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Susan Young is the Bangor Daily News opinion editor.
This weekend we celebrate mothers. Mother’s Day will be celebrated with lots of flowers, hand-made cards and maybe breakfast in bed or a Sunday brunch.
Not to be a total downer, but among the fetes of motherhood, it is worth remembering that becoming and being a mom is dangerous business, literally.
While the maternal mortality rate in the U.S., which had spiked precipitously during the pandemic, has dropped, having a baby in the U.S. is far more dangerous than it is in other developed countries.
Bouquets and jewelry are nice, but if we really want to celebrate mothers, we need to make it safer for them to have children. To be clear, there are millions of Americans filling the role of mother who didn’t give birth to children. These moms are very much worth celebrating. However, for this column, I’m focusing on the troublingly high maternal mortality rate in the U.S. A rate that is likely to rise as more states impose heavy restrictions on family planning and maternal care.
Researchers have found that both maternal and infant mortality rates are higher in states with strict regulations on abortion. That doesn’t seem very pro-life to me.
Overall, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. in 2022 was 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births. That’s a significant drop from a rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births in 2021, according to data released this month by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The drop in maternal deaths is surely good news. But, there are still troubling disparities. Maternal mortality rates in the U.S. are far higher than in similar wealthy countries. And, like so many other health metrics, Black women are at highest risk. Their maternal mortality rate was 49.5 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, down from 69.9 deaths per 100,000, but still shockingly — and unacceptably — high.
These numbers are real people. Women like YoLanda Mention, a Black mother from South Carolina, who died of a stroke days after giving birth to a baby girl in March 2015. She could have been saved with inexpensive IV medication — and better attention to her deteriorating condition, which included alarmingly high blood pressure, USA Today reported.
There are many interrelated reasons for these horrifying numbers. 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. This is compounded by a shortage of pregnancy and childbirth providers, especially midwives, which are more common in other countries.
And, shockingly, in cases like Mention’s, many health providers don’t recognize serious pregnancy and childbirth complications. Nearly two-thirds of these deaths are preventable, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. is also sadly unique in not requiring paid parental leave after a child is born or adopted. Nationally, nearly 1 in 4 mothers return to work within two weeks of giving birth. This puts their health, and the well-being of their babies, in jeopardy.
And here’s another thing: many of these disparities will likely get worse between states like Maine, which respect reproductive rights and support new parents, and states that are tightly restricting reproductive health care. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and states have moved to restrict access to reproductive health care, including abortion, we’ve seen horror stories of women forced to carry dangerous and doomed pregnancies. We’ve read about doctors afraid to provide needed prenatal care for fear of punishment. Simply put, more women will die and more babies will needlessly suffer (and perhaps die).
Regardless of differing stances on abortion, we should all be able to agree that pregnancy, childbirth and childrearing should be made easier, not more risky. Making that a reality would be the best Mother’s Day present.
