Maternal Mortality Shames Superpower US
United Nations - Despite its enormous wealth and highly advanced technology, the United States lags far behind other industrialised countries — and even some developing ones — in providing adequate health care to women during pregnancy and childbirth.
The U.S. ranks 41st in a new analysis of maternal mortality rates in 171 countries released by a group of U.N. public health experts on Friday. The survey shows that even a developing country like South Korea is ahead of the United States.
“Women are unnecessarily dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications because the U.S. is moving in a wrong direction,” said Beneva Schulte of Women Deliver, a Washington-based group campaigning for women’s reproductive rights and access to public health care.
Based on 2005 estimates, the U.N. analysis suggests that one in 4,800 women in the United States carry a lifetime risk of death from pregnancy. By contrast, among the 10 top-ranked industrialised countries, fewer than one in 16,400 are facing a similar situation.
The reason? According to experts, in many European countries and Japan in the industrialised world, women are guaranteed good-quality health and family planning services that minimise their lifetime risk.
Many independent experts and sympathetic legislators hold the current U.S. public health policy responsible for its dismal record because some 47 million U.S. citizens have no access to health insurance, most of them African Americans and other minorities.
“We must ensure that pregnant women are covered,” Congresswoman Lois Capps, a California Democrat, told IPS. “Even if we have the best technology, not everyone has the access to health care.”
Capps also said the scope of the problem could be even worse than it appeared. “We have to improve our data collection,” she said. “I don’t think we have all the data.”
U.N. experts who prepared the analysis said they developed a new approach to estimating maternal mortality that seeks both to generate estimates for countries with no data and to correct available data for underreporting and misclassification.
They hold that inconsistency in data on deaths and on classification of those deaths creates broad uncertainties in many places, even in developed countries. But all estimates almost certainly understate the problem.
Responding to inquiries by IPS, a U.S. public health official identified “racial disparity” as the most significant factor underlying the high U.S. maternal mortality rate. “Black women are four times more vulnerable than whites,” Eve Lackritz, chief of the Maternal and Infant Health branch of the Centres for Disease Control (CDC), told IPS.
In Lackritz’s view, obesity and hypertension are two leading causes of pregnancy-related risks in the United States. “We have to be more responsive,” she said. “This is one of our big problems.”
The U.S. situation within the industrialised world aside, the other end of the spectrum shows there are 10 countries — all of them in Africa except for Afghanistan — where high fertility and shattered health care systems are causing extreme risks for pregnant women.
According to researchers, in countries like Somalia, Mali, Chad, and Niger, on average more than one in every 15 women is likely to die of pregnancy-related causes. In Niger, the estimate suggests that one out seven women is vulnerable to death during pregnancy.
Their analysis comes at a time when many development activists and U.N. officials are trying to evaluate how far the world has progressed in meeting the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon by the world leaders some seven years ago.
When the world leaders attended a summit in New York in September 2000, they agreed that the MDGs must be achieved by 2015. That commitment included policy initiatives to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent.
Many experts believe that in the past seven years nothing much has changed for the millions of poor women with regard to their economic wellbeing and access to health care.
As reported by the British medical journal the Lancet this week, at the current pace, there is almost no hope that the world will be able to achieve the 75 percent target.
Annually, about 20 million women undergo unsafe abortions, which, according to the journal, is a major factor in maternal deaths and illness.
Reproductive rights activists say that governments must take drastic steps to reverse the situation if they are serious in meeting the MDGs on reducing the maternal mortality rates in the next seven years.
“We still have the situation we had 20 years ago,” said Ann Starrs of the independent group Family Care International in a statement. “Half a million women die every year from the complications of childbirth.”
A recent study by Harvard University professor Ken Hill found that between 1990 and 2005, maternal deaths did fall, but by less than one percent a year. Hill and many other researchers estimate that at least 10 to 20 million women suffer injuries from the complications of childbirth every year.
Experts say this suffering could be easily avoided if international donors contributed just 6.1 billion dollars over the next seven years.
On Oct. 18-20, more than 1,500 world leaders will convene in London for “Women Deliver”, a global conference that will focus on creating political will and strengthening health systems to prevent the deaths of “one woman every minute of every day during pregnancy or childbirth”.
© 2007 Inter Press Service
GREED! Tony
President Carter established the WIC (Women in Crisis) program to assist women and babies. Now, Bush wants to cut funding for even that.
Message: Despite unctious words, Republicans don’t care about families unless they’re rich.
Perhaps it is time for another ‘Lysitrata’.
America claims to be the most religious country in the world. Unfortunately, the GOD most Americans is called GREED.
where are the pro-lifers on this one. the silence is deafening.
Every young girl/woman should read articles like this. If they had any smarts, the population of the “richest country in the world” would be zero, since it doesn’t provide good maternal health care.
In addition, with so many people homeless in the United States, it’s beginning to look like a 3rd world country. However, the top wealthy elite war profiteers have gotten richer and richer, while loudly proclaiming that America is “the best country in the world.”
hehe
Hey, now wait. The millions of women at high risk are mainly non-white, aren’t they? Yeah, I know: some of the American high-risk women are white, but they probably are poor, shiftless, and ignorant, so let’s don’t get carried away. And what the hell? Our President, who was appointed by God, has assured us they can always go to emergency rooms.
Now, all you snotty nay-sayers just shut up about Gorgeous George. He knows everything about everything. If he says it, it must be right. I just don’t understand how we are going to survive after his term expires. Actually, in 64 years I have never managed to hate anyone as much as I hate him. I get goose pimples all over my body when I hear his voice. If I accidentally see him on TV I have to divert my eyes. My husband and I work as an advocates for people with disabilities in North-Central Florida and, since we had his brother, Jeb, for eight years things are even rosier HERE. Of course Clinton’s “Welfare Reform Act of 1996″ didn’t do us any favors, either. The poorest and sickest and weakest have been bullied and abused and have very few to speak up for them. People in this area, being devout, ultra-right-wing born-again Christians, know in their hearts that these people are being punished for their sins so deserve whatever misery they are enduring and therefore can ignore their plight. Sometimes I wish I could just go crazy for a day and grab a gun. I wouldn’t, of course, but fantasy can be fun!!!! Pray for a decent, progressive Democrat, not a centrist like — well, you know who I mean — Republican Lite, shall we say?
Universal health insurance would take care of this provided the law stops interfering with women’s rights to make their own health decisions in consultation with their physicians concerning pregnancies. The Right to Lifers are in denial that high risk pregnancies even exist. The Supreme Court’s recent decision to deny women appropriate treatment in late term pregnancies gone wrong (misnamed partial birth abortions) WILL KILL hundreds of American women each year and WILL cause permanent injuries to many more. Women have a right to life which must always take priority. Eclampsia, a toxic condition that poisons both fetus and mother, never occurs prior to 20 weeks gestation. Pre-eclampsia is relatively common and can quickly become life-threatening.
Women beware! The deck has been stacked against you. The majority in the Supreme Court now are Catholic (and everyone knows where the Pope stands on the reproductive rights of women); the religious right has proclaimed that life begins at conception, and if they have their way, there’ll soon be no more birth control of any sort. And the GOP pushes for enforcing laws on the books rather than making more laws, and guess who’ll soon be feeling the squeeze from the three groups! Who cares about women! They’re a dime a dozen.
Shame on the liberal elite Hollywood media for even releasing this story. They are trying to undermine the Leader and support the terrorists by pretending money is going to Iraq instead of pregnant American women. They are pandering to the NAACP crowd by alleging a huge disparity between black and white women. It’s a plot by socialists to have the government interfere with the market place and promote fraud by sniveling welfare cheats. And who are these UN public health experts anyway? Everyone knows the UN is an anti-American organization that will create fake data to make us look bad. We have the best health care system in the world, the best economic system in the world, the best military in the world and the best flag in the world. God Bless America and Support the Troops!!! Hail victory!
This preview of the next Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly broadcasts has been brought to you by the National Sarcasm Association.
The USA along with China are third world superpowers. Ringing endorsement for the leaders of both countries, HUH.
This country has been run for 25 years by conservatives of various stripes ALL claiming to have family values and love Jesus.
Hypocrites every stinking one of them.
If the religious “right” want women to be barefoot, PREGNANT, and in the kitchen, breeding and having one baby after another with no access to birth control or the right to choose, then THEY can support the unwanted babies that women cannot afford. Instead, they complain endlessly about women on welfare, which isn’t very much I hear. Didn’t Clinton pass the law that allows mothers and children to be on welfare for a certain number of years? Where are the men in this picture, by the way? It’s easier and safer for men to get an operation to prevent having children than it is for women.
Another suggestion is to withhold sex so women don’t get pregnant; how’s that, guys? Doesn’t the religious “right” recommend abstinence anyway?
“Annually, about 20 million women undergo unsafe abortions”
That is criminal! There ought to be a hunting season on the Twinkies that deny poor women proper healthcare and adequate family planning, but this is part of the larger issue of universal single payer healthcare for every citizen who wants it.
The US lags far behind a range of rich and poor countries in providing healthcare in general to its population. But the right-wingers who’ve dominated the US since the 80s have to be causing others to suffer in order to feel good about themselves.
Yes, and here is yet something else to shame the superpower us.
Media coverage of the Rice-Gates visit to Moscow has been utterly stupid, for one reason: President Putin’s viewpoint on “missile defense” is one hundred times more sensible than the American program.
One may think anything one wants about Putin. On this point, however, he makes us Americans look silly.
A return to cold war rhetoric and missile increments, making the world more dangerous, is insanity.
Media sympathy for Condoleezza Rice’s having to deal with hard-nosed Russians just doesn’t cut it.
As a retired OB-GYN I can without any doubt tell you the problem is simple, Poverty this comes along with racial disparity, inner city poor, rural poor in the South etc. etc. A single payer, universal health system is the only answer (just as in civilized countries) and do not forgrt to get the insurance companies out of it (talking about greed). But of course we can not afford such a system becaused we rather spend our money killing people in the Middle east, right? GOD help us, HRB
WIC is acronym for Women Infants and Children, one of the most worthy programs still around, for now. But I’m sure ol’ GWB has his sights set on it.
a huge problem in the usa is the abuse and overuse of delivery by c-section.a doctor will artificially halt the normal process of labor,if it doesnt quite “fit’with his busy scedule.artificial manipulation of labor is not healthy and more often than not,is not necessary. 9 out of 10 c-section deliveries are not necessary-and sometimes they are just convienent.women need more education,so that they can not be manipulated by ‘contolling’men…………women rights need to come to the forefront of all discussions..for we are the hands that rock the cradles…in the muslim world,the deplorable and often dangerous practice of ‘FEMALE CIRCUMCISM”MUST COME TO AN END !!in the muslim world the continuing practice and ritual female circumcism,must be banned and ‘honor’killings must be outlawed or any peace desired with a benevolent creator is compromised !!!!!!!!!!!!
first lady ROSALYN CARTER,IS THE TRUE FOUNDER,AUTHOR AND GENUIS OF THE WIC(women,infants and children)a program that has fed MILLIONS !!YES,MILLIONS !!of pregnant woman,babies and children,over the years ! this program,provided optimun nourishment,to mothers and children,who otherwise would have gone without.rosalyn carter is a TRUE HUMANITARIAN and deserves recognition !!GIVE ROSALYN CARTER THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i have been trying to post this comment in its entirety and keep getting cut off,so i will try again,first lady rosalyn carter is the founder author and genius of women,infants,and children or WIC program.this program provided optimun nourishment to pregnant women,babies and children,who otherwise would have gone without..over the years..rosalyn’s WIC program has fed millions..MILLIONS !!of women and babies and children.rosalyn carter is a TRUE HUMANITARIAN and deserves recognition ! GIVE A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO ROSALYN CARTER !!!!!!!!!
the pope should be made to choose ONE,it is either abortion or birth control..it is not realistic to have it BOTH ways.the catholic church has always been led by perverted men(the inquisition)who force women into impossible tenets,so that when women fail,because it IS unrealistic..the male heads of the church can point their blood drenched fingers at women and convict them(unrightly) of being sinful unholy creatures. i agree with all posters here that national healthcare is the only way to go,as mercenarie insurance companies should NEVER have a ’stake’in our health..they(insurance companies) are greedholes that have no business deciding matters of life and death over the poplace !!!!
wow
The Catholic church only exists because there are enough stupid people to put the money in the collection plate/basket, or whatever they use. It is the world’s oldest multi-national corporate business model. Why do women, treated so badly by the church for centuries, go along by belonging and giving money?
To the question of Malthus2: They go along because they are so beaten down already, they do not have enough left to make a change, nor do they believe they can make a change and they have no self respect left, period. That is as short as I can make it.
I find it odd how so few people here stayed on-topic. The topic is the poor state of US healthcare, as evidenced by high maternal mortality.
SHAME on the US OLIGARCHY!!
“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
ONE is the campaign to make poverty history:
http://one.org/
——————–
The United States should be on the list of failed states!
I read and despair.That there are so many spouting Religion/Gods/Biblical quotes.
All of the above originating from the demented ravings of semi literate sheep herders of thousands of years ago.
Until the U.S.A. citizens kick off their shackles of religiosity I am afraid they will never come to sensible conclusions, because that my friends, requires thinking for yourselves. Can anybody truly deny that the way to a better health outcome can only be from a Universal Health System with equal quality and delivery for all stratas of Society.? It won’t come from well meaning, piece meal delivery by Church Organisations and Hospitals. It can only come from a Centralist Government implemented system.
Oh!! Horrors!! He means Socialisation/Nationalisation.
Equal opportunities. Err!! wasn’t that a “Free Enterprise” slogan some years back?
Equal opportunities= equal access,=Egalite, Fraternite etc., Tom Edgar Australia. tomedgar@halenet.com.au
on the mark again tom.
Conservative voices are (nearly) silent here because we are in stunned disbelief at your ignorance. And don’t compare my values to W, because he’s almost as bad as all of you.
A primer on Catholocism: The pope doesn’t decide anything. God does. The pope just keeps us on course. Catholics believe in abstinence, the perfect contraception. (After all, it is God’s idea!) It’s the least costly, most reliable contraceptive ever. With it, all other contraceptives (and abortion) are obsolete. It’s all natural…no side effects.
If any of you were capable of rational thought you’d realize…
…killing someone YOU created (abortion) is not acting responsibly. (but when have liberals EVER taken responsibility for their own actions?) You were ‘responsible’ enough to create it, now care for it.
…universal health care will lead to even worse care than what we already have. We are adults, we don’t need a nanny state to make good healthcare decisions for us. We can do that for ourselves. It is not the federal government’s duty to provide entitlement money to every irresponsible citizen.