Maternal Deaths Due To Childbirth Negligence

A country's quality of healthcare is sometimes gauged by its infant mortality rate, which is commonly known as the death rate among infants under the age of one year. Few people discuss about the maternal death rate, which is the number of women who die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth-related complications.

Contrary to popular belief, maternal mortality in the United States is shockingly high, even for a developed country like ours. In fact, the mortality rate for mothers in the United States has risen in recent years, while it has fallen in the majority of other industrialized nations.

Many maternal deaths are avoidable and might have been avoided if proper care had been given during pregnancy and delivery. This information about maternal deaths and the involvement of medical malpractice should be taken into consideration by mothers, dads, and other concerned family members in the United States of America (USA).

In the United States, the maternal death rate is unacceptable

Some horrifying stats concerning the maternal death rate in the United States were presented in an NPR News report about the tragic story of Lauren Bloomstein, a mother who died 20 hours after giving birth to a healthy baby. According to the article, between 700 and 900 women in the United States die each year as a result of pregnancy or childbirth-related problems, and another 65,000 are close to death.

When you consider that the United States has one of the worst maternal death rates in developed countries, these data are even more disturbing. In the United States, pregnant and new mothers had a higher mortality rate from maternal complications than those in Canada and six times higher than those in Scandinavia. According to a TIME story, the maternal mortality rate in the United States is higher than in Libya, Turkey, and Iran combined.

To make matters worse, the mortality rate for women giving birth in the United States is rising, despite the fact that the rate is declining in many rich and developing countries alike.

Maternal Death: Who is at Risk?

Data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation demonstrates that some persons are at greater risk of maternal death than others, but the foundation also discovered that approximately 60 percent of all maternal fatalities are preventable. When it comes to maternal deaths, those who:

Black, live in the countryside, and have poor incomes.

Because more women are having kids at an older age (the average age of first-time US mothers today is 26.3; just 15 years ago, it was 24.9), maternal death rates may be increasing in the United States as well. It's possible that the rise in pregnancies is a result of women failing to address any residual health issues before to getting pregnant. Pregnancy issues such as gestational diabetes are made more difficult by the high prevalence of obesity in the United States.

Maternal Death and Negligence as a Factor

A woman's risk of death during childbirth or pregnancy can be increased by many risk factors, yet approximately two-thirds of all maternal deaths can be prevented. To put it another way, doctors are causing maternal fatalities, so what exactly is happening?

The following are some of the most prevalent pregnancy and pregnancy-related complications that can lead to a woman's death;

Infection, preeclampsia, and problems after cesarean sections are all possible causes of the heavy bleeding.

Healthcare methods to prevent or manage problems are well established, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Continued information from the WHO explains that infection can be prevented by using good hygiene practices during surgery or when caring for a pregnant woman; that preeclampsia can be prevented and treated by constantly monitoring a pregnant woman's blood pressure; that the symptoms are easily identifiable and should be treated immediately. Having a cesarean section or being induced into labor are equally risky procedures that should be thoroughly researched before undergoing. A cesarean section can be catastrophic for both the mother and the baby if the procedure goes awry.

Putting the mother's life at risk when doctors fail to monitor the mother and instead just focus on the baby puts the mother at risk. If women like Bloomstein's ailments were diagnosed early and treated immediately, they would not have died as a result of their illnesses. Eight percent of all maternal deaths in the United States are attributed to preeclampsia, whereas in the United Kingdom, preeclampsia has a mortality incidence of one in a million.

Death as a Consequence of Negligence

Boomstein's story is terrible, as are those of the many other women who have lost their lives due to problems during childbirth. Most maternal deaths could have been prevented had nurses and doctors been more attentive to their patients and acted immediately in the event of a problem arising. Malpractice is the failure to meet a doctor's ethical and legal obligations to the patient and the profession as a whole. When this happens, hospitals, doctors, and nurses must all be held accountable.