The USA has the highest maternal mortality rates in all the developed countries around the world. Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to succumb to pregnancy or childbirth-related causes of deaths as compared to their white counterparts.
The Center for Disease Control identifies three significant potentially preventable complications of pregnancy and labor that contribute a lion share to rising the maternal deaths. The causes include postpartum hemorrhage, severe hypertension, and venous thromboembolism.
Drs. Hollier & Brown, co-authors of a new perspective published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), identifies 4 actions that can be quickly adopted by all hospitals and healthcare providers to address the preventable causes of maternal deaths.
This picture by NEJM enumerates the four causes.
