15 Women Die in Pregnancy or Childbirth: Poor Maternal Health Outcomes for Women of Color

There has been a series of instances that show that there exist poor maternal health outcomes more so for women of color. Even so, the hospitals remain unprepared for dealing with emergencies that concern maternal care. In most cases, people blame treatable complications for mothers dying when the admission of the right care would be used to prevent such deaths.

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The statistics show that for every 100,000 live births, close to 15 women die in pregnancy or Childbirth (Krieger et al., 2013). About a century ago, the number of deaths was close to 600, and in the 1600s and 1700s, the rate of death was twice that. In the past 150 years, life expectancy has doubled in the United States, and there has been a decrease in maternal mortality (Krieger et al., 2013). Generally, the history of how women of color are less likely to survive Childbirth revolves around issues of hubris, mistrust, greed, and incompetence, among others.

At the end of the 1800s, the rate of death in the overall population had started to drop (Krieger et al., 2013). The presence of the Jim Crow laws could have been the main reason for more deaths of women of color because they legalized racial segregation. The existence of the Jim Crow laws started as early as 1865 after the amendment that abolished the issue of slavery in the United States (Krieger et al., 2013).

The laws grew largely and continued to terrorize the black communities. The spread of the laws among the states led to segregation such that public parks became forbidden for the African Americans to enter, and the theaters were segregated. The healthcare centers were more accessible to the whites as the African Americans found it difficult to access necessary care during pregnancy and child-birth.

In 1887, people were convinced that the Jim Crow laws that blacks and whites could not co-exist peacefully. However, the blacks started to perform activities that were devoted to fighting the Jim Crow laws as they were angry at the injustice they had. Even at the start of the 20th century, the laws still existed (Krieger et al., 2013). However, the race riots by the blacks increased in 1919, and in response, the whites charged the blacks with the conspiracy to conquer America.

It was after the Second World War that communities saw an increase in activities for civil rights among the communities with African Americans. The focus was to ensure that black citizens could vote and get access to medical care as they needed. In 19948, it was ruled that segregation of the black communities was not in line with the constitution. President Lyndon Johnson legally put to an end the issue of segregation in the year 1964 (Krieger et al., 2013). This way, women of color were free to receive proper medication from hospitals of their choice without worrying that they would not be admitted.

Another reason why women of color were less likely to survive Childbirth was the ignorance of doctors. At the time, the most significant danger that expectant mothers experienced was that of infections (Oberman, 1999). People believed that puerperal fever was contagious, but there was no knowledge of its transmission. For doctors to avoid being blamed for maternal deaths, they lied on death certificates as they would state that the mother's death was as a result of fever.

The death rates of women of color during Childbirth began to drop in the 1930s because of the introduction of sulfa antibiotics that could be easily administered to deal with bacteria causing puerperal fever. The doctors cleaned up their operations because there were reports linking the high rates of deaths to improper procedures conducted by the doctors Oberman, 1999). There was an improvement in training, and doctors also stopped using dangerous techniques hence leading to a steady decline in complications that involved the use of C-sections.

As a result of improving nutrition, mothers gave birth to healthier children at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century. There were improvements in the medical facilities as prenatal care was made a standard part of medical practices. Other improvements included arrangements for proper birth controls that were reliable and safe for women to limit and also properly time their pregnancies. This way, there was a decrease in illegal abortions that has also been a leading cause of death for pregnant women.

The current years have seen the need to have necessary factors for safe delivery put in place for the mother and the baby as well, which are excellent care, good advice, and supervision from medical staff that is clearly trained. There is a need to eliminate racial disparities for maternal and infant mortality to overcome the risk of complications during birth, and the worst is death. When a woman becomes pregnant, she risks experiencing complications such as preterm labor, infections, diabetes, and also death. It is upon the concerned medical departments of the government to ensure that they overcome all issues that may cause a woman of color not to get treatment during the time of the pregnancy.

In conclusion, it was in the 17th century that it was noticed that women of color were less likely to survive Childbirth, but it became severe during the 1800s when there were laws instituted to allow segregation of black communities. Another contributing factor to such death was the incompetence of doctors at healthcare facilities as they did not know how to deal with bacterial infections.

References

Krieger, N., Chen, J. T., Coull, B., Waterman, P. D., & Beckfield, J. (2013). The unique impact of abolition of Jim Crow laws on reducing inequities in infant death rates and implications for choice of comparison groups in analyzing societal determinants of health. American journal of public health, 103(12), 2234-2244. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828968/Oberman, M. (1999). Mothers and doctors' orders: Unmasking the doctor's fiduciary role in maternal-fetal conflicts. Nw. UL, Rev., 94, 451. HYPERLINK "https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1535&context=facpubs" https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1535&context=facpubs