“Many studies have indicated that an increasing number of pregnant women in the U.S. have health con

“Many studies have indicated that an increasing number of pregnant women in the U.S. have health conditions that could boost the risk of problematic complications including chronic health disease, hypertension and diabetes. More than half of the women in the U.S. who become pregnant are above a healthy weight. Women who are 35 or older are also at increased risk of complications during pregnancy. Poor prenatal care and barriers to accessing health care could be killing more women, too.Inadequate postnatal care may be another driver of mortality in women—one that that doesn’t show up in the official U.S. data analysis by the National Center for Health Statistics because the deaths tend to occur more than 43 days after pregnancy ends.”“Researchers have shown that black women are not inherently more likely to have underlying pregnancy complications. Indeed, one national study that looked at five major common causes of maternal death and injury that collectively account for more than a quarter of all pregnancy-related deaths found that black women did not have a significantly higher prevalence than white women of those conditions—preeclampsia, eclampsia, obstetric hemorrhage, placental abruption and placenta previa. Yet black women were two to three times more likely to die than white women with the same complication.“Poor women are at a greater risk of dying than women who have higher incomes, but the disparity between black and white women is consistent at all income levels. -- source link

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