This story about maternal mortality in California was a real kick in the ass. Short story is that maternal mortality is raging in California. To wit:
In 2006, 95 California women died from causes directly related to their pregnancies – out of more than 500,000 live births. That’s a small number by public health standards. But if California had met the goal set by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to bring the state’s maternal mortality rate down to a level achieved by other countries, the number of dead would have been closer to 28.
I also appreciate that the article comments on racial disparities, even if it seems a little “throw up your hands”-ish:
It’s not clear which mothers are most at risk, but researchers have long known that African American mothers are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. That racial association is not stratified by socio-economic status: Even high-income black women are at a greater risk.
I think I was a little annoyed at first because there seemed to be a lot of focus on maternal factors instead of looking at the possibility that labors were mismanaged, but the article finished strong by talking about the rise in cesarean surgeries and the health risks posed. Here’s where it got an A+ from me:
Dr. David Lagrew, meanwhile, thinks he may have arrived at an answer. In 2002, Lagrew, the medical director of the Women’s Hospital at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Orange County, noticed that many women were having their labor induced before term without a medical reason. He knew that having an induction doubled the chances of a C-section.
So he set a rule: no elective inductions before 41 weeks of pregnancy, with only a few exceptions. As a result, Lagrew said, the operating room schedules opened up, and the hospital saw fewer babies admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, fewer hemorrhages and fewer hysterectomies.
All this, however, came at a cost: The hospital had to take a cut in revenue for reducing the procedures it performed. Lagrew doubts that any hospital has increased its C-section rate in pursuit of profit, but he adds that the first hospitals to adopt controls on early elective inductions have been nonprofits. (emphasis added)
Nice. Very nice. Follow the money, folks.
