@ Maternal Mortality Crisis Continues to Worsen

[wanderingback]

Also I’ll say this is another reason that it’s sad that family medicine OB care is a dying breed in the US. In academic residency programs and more in the Midwest and south family medicine still does a lot of OB, but in larger cities it’s not as common. With the family medicine model the baby and the postpartum person are seen within a few days and family med is qualified to take care of both. Most people don’t skip the newborn appointments like they do their postpartum appointments. But insurance and the medical industrial complex has systemically changed the family medicine model (other specialists get paid more).

[bohemianmango]

Sharing the link for Mama Glow Foundation. The foundation is doing important work for reproductive justice and birth equity and is raising awareness about medical racism.

mamaglowfoundation.org/

I went to elementary school with the founder, Latham. Even at a young age, I remember being in awe of Latham and thinking she’s going to be a change-leader. She is brilliant and shined back then too. We were some of the few minorities at the school. When she spoke, we always listened. About a year ago, she spoke at VP Harris’s inaugural White House Maternal Health Day of Action. I hope the political and healthcare leaders listened too and we see the necessary systemic action and change.

[Michelle]

Dec 8, 2022 19:19:30 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Also I’ll say this is another reason that it’s sad that family medicine OB care is a dying breed in the US. In academic residency programs and more in the Midwest and south family medicine still does a lot of OB, but in larger cities it’s not as common. With the family medicine model the baby and the postpartum person are seen within a few days and family med is qualified to take care of both. Most people don’t skip the newborn appointments like they do their postpartum appointments. But insurance and the medical industrial complex has systemically changed the family medicine model (other specialists get paid more).

I saw this in the 2004-5 time period in Healthcare in Houston. 

However, the ACA has provisions that made family medicine once again a profitable proposition. Hospitals with physician organizations in Houston have seen tremendous growth in family medicine acquisitions. I think that the electronic medical records provision of ACA also made it less profitable for individual family medicine practices so they needed to leverage joining large organizations who can apply economies of scale for EMRs across the whole system.

I'm sure there are more factors that I'm not aware of since I don't specialize in physician organization practices, but the same companies who had sold off family medicine practices in 2004 and 5 started buying them up again after the ACA. But recruiting is allegedly challenging - so sponsorship of foreign doctors to supplement the gaps is huge.

And then there is the TX GOP that wants to cancel the H1B program altogether... nothing like cutting off our noses to spite our faces...

[NewOrleans]

A study published Wednesday found maternal death rates in 2020 were higher in areas with significant abortion restrictions, a finding experts say paints a grim picture for the U.S. after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Maternal death rates in 2020 were 62% higher in states with abortion bans or restrictions

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/12/15/abortion-restrictions-bans-maternal-infant-mortality-report/10891264002/

[basilosaurus]

Dec 16, 2022 18:38:02 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

A study published Wednesday found maternal death rates in 2020 were higher in areas with significant abortion restrictions, a finding experts say paints a grim picture for the U.S. after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Maternal death rates in 2020 were 62% higher in states with abortion bans or restrictions

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/12/15/abortion-restrictions-bans-maternal-infant-mortality-report/10891264002/

Shocking absolutely anyone with a hint of knowledge in this area.

Ffs I've been arguing this since 2002 and volunteered with women who'd been arguing since the 70s. This not only was expected it was desired by these assholes

[basilosaurus]

Dec 16, 2022 23:09:53 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

Dec 16, 2022 18:38:02 GMT -5 NewOrleans said:

A study published Wednesday found maternal death rates in 2020 were higher in areas with significant abortion restrictions, a finding experts say paints a grim picture for the U.S. after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

Maternal death rates in 2020 were 62% higher in states with abortion bans or restrictions

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/12/15/abortion-restrictions-bans-maternal-infant-mortality-report/10891264002/

Shocking absolutely anyone with a hint of knowledge in this area.

Ffs I've been arguing this since 2002 and volunteered with women who'd been arguing since the 70s. This not only was expected it was desired by these assholes

To continue...

I do get people who just didn't know or understand the threat. I told my "mother" back in 2006 that Bush intended to get rid of birth control as evidenced by him appointing an anti BC head of HHS, and I said it would result in death. She refused to believe me. She said once liberties are won they won't be lost, called me a militant alarmist nutjob. She, not my birth mom, was pretty young in 1973. And sheltered. She really believed what she said. For her the fight was getting to go to college for a year. She couldn't envision a world that didn't allow bcp or abortion. I was on the front lines at the clinics in the early oughties (earliest I could) sharing what I saw and heard which was as abhorrent as it's always been. They won't stop until women are dead and preferably women of color. That's just fucking obvious. That is the fucking plan.

Normally I love to be right. Not at this moment.

[fortnightlily]

I'm still floored by the stat that pregnant women die more from being murdered than they do from causes related to the pregnancy itself.

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03392-8

[atarianna]

I had not understood the magnitude of this crisis until it literally slapped me in the face and a dear friend nearly died.

My friend who is non-white and English as like her 10th language (relevant because she’s a fucking genius and speaks many languages but is treated as subhuman here) is also a devout Muslim. She had given birth in a refugee camp previously and had a horrifically botched c-section. About 3 weeks after her second c-section here, she called me because she was filling more than a pad an hour and needed to see a doctor.

I took her to the ER, with my two young kids, her toddler and NB and we proceeded to wait for 8 (!!!!) hours! I helped translate and told them of her complications with her second birth related to all the scarring etc. She was still changing her pad constantly, but eventually was so tired and gray that she begged me to take her home. I was exhausted and my kids were bouncing off the walls, so while I knew it wasn’t the right thing, I obliged out of sheer exhaustion.

On our way to her apartment, I called a midwife friend to talk through things and figure out what I could best do for her. She was uncomfortable consulting without seeing her herself so she met us at her apartment. Immediately upon examining her she called 911 and an ambulance brought my friend to a different hospital where she had to have emergency surgery and blood transfusions to save her life. It was fucking horrific.

While I can’t say for certain that her ethnicity, language barrier and religion had a part in her lack of care, in all the years I lived there, *I* was never treated like she was. Even with me as her advocate, she was treated as subhuman and it still makes me insanely angry.

So I now have a very personal connection to our maternal mortality stats and it is something I care super deeply about.

[gretchenindisguise]

This was a great conversation about the black maternal crisis: www.instagram.com/tv/CmNRu7ijqzZ/?igshid=MWI4MTIyMDE=

[Jalapeñomel]

Bumping this as this crisis continues:

www.npr.org/2023/06/13/1181971448/tori-bowie-an-elite-olympic-athlete-died-of-complications-from-childbirth

[aurora]

Jun 16, 2023 15:46:40 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Bumping this as this crisis continues:

www.npr.org/2023/06/13/1181971448/tori-bowie-an-elite-olympic-athlete-died-of-complications-from-childbirth

Heartbreaking and infuriating all at once. We fail women -- and especially women of color -- so badly in this country.

[wanderingback]

Jun 16, 2023 15:46:40 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Bumping this as this crisis continues:

www.npr.org/2023/06/13/1181971448/tori-bowie-an-elite-olympic-athlete-died-of-complications-from-childbirth

I’m bumping this because there’s a follow up. Very sad.
I was wondering if mental health concerns were at play since the original stories I read said a well being check was how she was found dead and it really didn’t seem like she had prenatal care.

She was only 95 pounds when she died Plus her house was foreclosed on and people had seen her sleeping in the streets. Horrible.
www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/olympic-champ-tori-bowies-mental-health-struggles-no-secret-tight-knit-rcna100576

[sakoro]

How awful, it says cause of death was respiratory distress and eclampsia. I wonder if someone was with her and abandoned her or if she was in labor alone.