United States: Following an increased rate of maternal deaths, California health officials now have a new strategy for ensuring new mothers are healthy before and after delivering their babies.
They set a goal to reduce childbirth-related deaths by half after two years.
Studies show that between 2019 and 2021, Californians died during pregnancy, during childbirth, or within a year after childbirth, over 200 people died. That means that North Carolina loses around 70 women to pregnancy-related causes per year or a mother every five days.
The state’s health advocates that the mortality rate is too high. According to some statistics, the majority of these deaths, or about 80 percent of them, could have been prevented.
What more are the experts stating?
These are recommendations of the California Surgeon General’s plan, which includes an educational campaign directed at patients and health professionals.
It concentrates on enstating knowledge of the causes of maternal mortality. Ramos would like patients to better manage the medical risks that involve them and be in a position to anticipate these even before conceiving.
For instance, the blueprint contains proposals for developing an at-home questionnaire to help expecting parents assess their own risk of pregnancy complications.
It will enable them to assess, on their own, for any risks that may be associated with future complications such as preeclampsia and preterm births.
According to Dr. Amanda Williams, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford’s School of Medicine, “The significance of the blueprint is that we are moving from identification of the problem to solutions that bring together hospitals, clinics, public health, all centered around the patient,” calmatters.org reported.
“Sometimes in medicine, we act like people spend their whole life in the office, clinic, or hospital, but it’s not where they truly are,” she continued.
“And so if we want to make a dent in perinatal morbidity and mortality, we have to work collaboratively and we have to work with the community,” She said.