Introduction
For many women pregnancy is
supposed to be a happy time. You are excited about this life you created and
you’re getting ready for them. Unfortunately, nothing goes the way you plan.
Approximately 830 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications
around the world every day (Maternal Mortality). Some of these deaths could be
preventable with earlier intervention. Women lack the knowledge of some of
these complications that could kill them and the baby. This is epidemic for
expectant mothers and it kills hundreds. Most deaths are due to complications
during child birth, severe bleeding, high blood pressure, and infections after
birth. These women are your mothers, sisters, girlfriends, and wives. If we
don’t do something about this epidemic, next one will be someone you care about
dearly.
History
Women have been giving birth
to life since the beginning of time. It’s a natural thing for women to give
birth. Unfortunately, a woman’s body can reject the pregnancy and can kill both
mother and baby. In the United States today,
about 15 women die in pregnancy or childbirth per 100,000 live births (Helmuth). That’s way too many, but a century ago it was more than 600
women per 100,000 births (1). In the 1600s and 1700s, the death rate was twice
that: By some estimates, between 1 and 1.5 percent of women giving birth died
(1). Note that the rate is per birth, so the lifetime risk of dying in
childbirth was much higher, perhaps 4 percent (1). In today’s
world pregnancy related deaths are higher where they should be in the day of
medicine very low. With an
estimated 26.4 deaths for every 100,000
live births in
2015, America has the highest maternal mortality rate of all industrialized
countries—by several times over. In Canada, the rate is 7.3; in Western Europe,
the average is 7.2, with many countries including Italy, Norway, Sweden, and
Austria showing rates around 4. More women die of childbirth-related causes in
the US than they do in Iran 20.8, Lebanon 15.3, Turkey 15.8, Puerto Rico 15.1,
China 17.7, and many more (What’s killing America’s new Mothers). Lack of resources can be blamed for
these higher numbers. Women not knowing what to look for and not being educated
on the possibility of something not going right. Understand we are not wanting
women to be fearful of dying every time they give birth but be aware of what
might happen. If women were more aware of the warning signs maybe the rate
would be lower. Many cases of
pregnancy deaths can be preventable if we are taught the warning signs. A lot
of women believe these signs are part of pregnancy. Signs like swollen legs and
feet and rapid weight gain are typical pregnancy signs. This is also a sign of
high blood pressure, which is usually associated with pre-eclampsia, one of the
leading causes of death in pregnancy. Another lack of resources is state funded and government
funded clinics closing in poverty areas. How can a woman see her doctor if
there is none around? Experts in
maternal health blame the high U.S. rate on poverty, untreated chronic
conditions and a lack of access to health care, especially in rural areas where
hospitals and maternity units have closed in the past few years (A Shocking
Number). The lack of medical help for these women in low income areas is
devasting. There should be someone these women can talk to and not just be
patted on the head and told by someone they are overreacting.
Social Effects
Pregnancy is supposed to be a time where
you preparing to bring in this new life to your family. There’s a misassumption that death at
childbirth doesn’t happen. Women who are healthy, they don’t drink or smoke and
exercise every day. They assume nothing will go wrong in the pregnancy. Who’s
to blame them when the medical field is making health care advancements every
day. Women assume there are things the doctor can do to help prevent any
harmful problems that might arise. Sadly, there is times where nothing can help
the pregnant mother or baby. The thought of something going wrong never crossed
my mind till about the fifth month of my pregnancy. Young and healthy wasn’t
drinking much but work 40 hours a week in pharmacy. My doctor diagnosed me with
onset of preeclampsia. Preeclampsia can cause your blood
pressure to rise and put you at
risk of brain injury (Preeclampsia foundation). It can impair kidney and liver function, and cause blood
clotting problems, pulmonary edema (fluid on the lungs), seizures and, in
severe forms or left untreated, maternal and infant death (1).
On the NPR Weekend Edition Radio show, host Renee Montagne, interviewed
women who had near-death experiences. In one particle interview a woman named Alicia Nichols gave her first hand account on her case. She was
having issues and knew that something wasn’t right. She had just given birth to
her baby via caesarian section a few weeks before symptoms showed. Alicia says
she felt a gush of blood from her vaginal area. She went to the emergency room, Alicia remembers the nurses as compassionate but a cool
reception from the resident who came over from the obstetrics department, who
chalked it up to natural postpartum bleeding (Montagne). And when I had asked about doing some
sort of scan or ultrasound, she said, we feel it's not necessary to do that, if
we start, she said, messing around in there. But it came across as, if we start
doing these tests, it could lead to multiple unnecessary testing. And then, one
of the nurses standing there said, I just think they want you home with your
baby (1). Montagne was feeling like she was not
be heard and felt the nurses weren’t that concern. Montagne then called and
went to her doctor still feeling like something wasn’t right. She was met with
the same attitude she received from emergency room staff. Her doctor chalked it
up as the beginning of her menstrual period.
Montagne says “I had no cramping. There was nothing. It was just bright-red
blood. And we all know. We're women. I don't want to be graphic, but we know
it's different” (1). At eight weeks
post-partum she began to bleed heavily. So, she went to her doctor and insisted
that he see her. She began hemorrhaging in the elevator that went to his
office. I remember I had tight sweatpants
on that day. Thank God. Its kind of helps keep everything in. I think the nurse
was a little shocked. She was oh, honey, didn't I tell you to bring a different
pair of pants with you? I said no. This is serious. You need to get the doctor.
And she said, he's in with somebody else. I said, get him out here (1). Even
then they treated her like it was nothing. According to Alicia's medical records, she
lost nearly half the blood in her body. As a last resort, as with Samantha,
doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy. In an addendum to her records, 24
hours later, her obstetrician stuck with his original theory about her
bleeding. Quote, "patient came to office with onset of first period that
seemed heavier than average," and he added, "suddenly hemorrhaged"(1).
In fact, a pathologist's report found an entirely different cause for the
bleeding. Enlarged blood vessels in the lining of her uterus, which had sent
nutrition and oxygen to her growing baby, failed to return to their
pre-pregnancy size and instead bled into Alicia's uterus. Though rare, it
could've been detected earlier with a scan and treated before it became a
life-threatening hemorrhage (1). It is sad all of this could have been avoided
if someone would of listen and took Montagne seriously. Many women deaths
post-partum could of be prevented.
Mortality with
pregnancy doesn’t just stop at the women who have passed but the one they left
behind. My husband Thomas Ryan Jones went through depression after my
complicated pregnancy. This is was a hard discussion to talk about for us. Ryan
was asked, what was his first thought when he found out his wife medical
condition? He said his first thought was “Is everything going to be okay
(Thomas)?” How did my high-risk pregnancy affect you? “I was stressed out all
the time. I was worried about the outcome of you and Sarah (1). How did my many
hospital stays make you feel? “It wasn’t comfortable. I mean we weren’t home in
our own bed. I was stressed. We weren’t about to do anything. We couldn’t go
fishing or hunting for a while there. I can remember you laid up in the
hospital bed and me beside you on the fold out (1).” Did you think you would
lose me, Sarah, or both? “At one point in time, because of how severe your
pre-eclampsia was and how pre-mature Sarah was (1).” We both develop depression
from the high-risk pregnancy. Being put in and out of the hospital and not
knowing what would happen next put a strain on us. Almost 8 years later we are
mentally better and happier. Our daughter Sarah is a sweet and loving almost
8-year-old girl. She doesn’t look like the 4 pound and 11-ounce preemie
anymore.
Many women die
from pregnancy related deaths each year due to lack of information and
unanswered cries for help. There should be a better way to inform women of
possible of trouble. This could be all prevented if we could be willing to
listen and not ignore the pregnant women worries. We need to come together for
this silent epidemic.
Solutions and Absurdity
Many women are dying daily from pregnancy
related deaths. You might think with the advancements in the medical field we
would have solutions. Sadly, there isn’t much advancement in the prenatal side
of the medical field, expect for fertility. Doctors usually say it is the body’s
way of rejecting the pregnancy. “Pre-eclampsia, scientists have found, starts when a mother's
white blood cells fail to adapt to the foreign body – the baby – inside her”
(Victoria). Women shouldn’t settle for that as an answer anymore. Ask
your doctor for help! “Help me save myself and the baby, please!?” Luckily, my
doctor was a high-risk doctor and he was proactively looking for solutions.
There are solutions that might help prevent so many deaths. Women should talk
to their OB-GYN before trying to have a baby and plan for a healthy
pregnancy. One thing that needs to
happen is making clinics more available in rural areas where women can be seen.
Also, we need to be proactive and inform young ladies and women that some of
the warning signs of trouble during pregnancy. We can save more lives if we can
all be proactive. Our future depends on it.
Solutions
When
it comes to preventing pregnancy related deaths as of right now there is not a clear
solution. There are some small helpful and useful solutions that could help.
For example, getting the information to females about signs of a troubled
pregnancy. We are focused on getting sex education to teenagers, but why not
more: We should teach females that not every pregnancy is easy. They need to
learn about pregnancy and complications that come with it. Maybe have a class
that informs females what happens to their body during pregnancy. Some signs of
problems mimic the usual signs of healthy pregnancy. With my pregnancy my feet
and legs swelled so much it hurt. Turns out it was a dangerous sign that was
almost over-looked by me. It was my mother and step-mother who brought it up to
my doctor. In my mind it was just a typical sign of pregnancy. Wrong, it was a
sign of pre-eclampsia. Not knowing and choosing not to say anything could have
killed me. That is why we should have females learn when to speak up and let
their voices be heard. With classes we could avoid preventable deaths with
pregnancy. Women need to get out of the sigma of keeping our body and worries
to ourselves. We live in a generation where we are more open instead of like
our grandparents or great-grandparents who kept it to themselves. We need more support for each other.
There
should be more available resources out there for women’s health. Clinics that
are supposed to help women are closing due to funding. In Galveston, Texas at
the University of Texas Medical Branch, they are helping women in rural areas
that have high-risk pregnancies. They have a program that helps high-risk
pregnant women, by giving them a place to stay. UTMB also helps by giving them
rides to their appointments and wherever they need to go. It like a home away
from home, but you are right down the road from the hospital. This would be a
helpful resource that could save many women and babies’ lives. If some of our
larger hospital can implicate programs like this maybe the morality rates with
pregnancy would go down quite a bit.
One
factor that we should look into is more medications that can help combat the
problem. My doctor had me on some to help with the headaches and nausea. One
that was giving to me during my multiple hospital stays was magnesium sulfate.
That medicine was to prevent seizures and help my blood pressure. Most of the conditions that kill women don’t
really have any FDA approved medications. With pre-eclampsia and HELLP
sometimes the only options are to deliver the babies. These conditions usually
start showing signs at 20 weeks and the baby isn’t fully developed. We need
more proactive doctors in the prenatal field to look into possible solutions.
In this day and time there should be something we can do. That being said the
women who have had the high-risk pregnancies can help by helping with research.
My doctor was working for the University of Texas Medical Branch where they do
tons of research of all kinds of diseases and medical conditions. He asked me
if the hospital can use my high-risk pregnancy for research. Of course, it was
a yes and told him please help others who were like me. If using my pregnancy
can help someone like me, then there is no reason to say no. Without research
on health-related issues we would not be as advance in the medical field as we
are now. We need to work with each other and support everyone. Working with the
doctors will lead to more solutions and hopefully medicines that can help
prevent death.
Absurdity
It
is truly ridiculous in this day in time we are still dealing with deaths
involving pregnancies. We should be finding ways to stop these deaths. Some of
these deaths are preventable and we need to figure out solutions. This is gut
wrenching for a lot of the families who go through this daily. How do they
manage without the mothers and sometimes the babies who have lost their lives?
My husband Ryan had to think about that possibility when it came to my
pregnancy. He developed depression during the last few months before our
daughter was born. The thought of losing me because there weren’t many health
care options besides terminating the pregnancy. It wrecked both of our hearts.
We wanted our daughter and did anything that could help us. Many men have to
struggle without their wives or girlfriends. They are left to deal with how the
pregnancy took away the love of their life.
Albert Camus said, “Where there is no hope, it is incumbent on us
to invent it” (Albert Camus Quotes). Since we have no solution, we need
to invent one ourselves. Take on the task at hand and find ways to fix it.
Let’s stop this deadly epidemic and fight for life. We need to keep pushing for
a solution. Another saying by Camus is “Always go too far, because that's where
you'll find the truth” (Albert Camus Quotes). Hoping and fighting for a future will help us save
man-kind. Let us stand up and push for the cure that could save so many.
This
is preventable, and we need more research on how to save future mothers and
babies. Elliot Main, the medical
director of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) feels
there is more that needs to be done. “It’s
the biggest catastrophe that we have in medicine to have young mothers die of
preventable causes” (Merelli). It feels
like we are missing a piece to a puzzle. Once we find that missing piece, we
can move forward in stopping this epidemic.
Work
Citied
“Albert
Camus Quotes (Author of The Stranger).” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/957894.Albert_Camus?page=3
Helmuth, Laura, and Laura
Helmuth. “The Never-Ending Battle Between Doctors and Midwives. Which Are More
Dangerous?” Slate Magazine, Slate, 10 Sept. 2013,
slate.com/technology/2013/09/death-in-childbirth-doctors-increased-maternal-mortality-in-the-20th-century-are-midwives-better.html.
Jones, Thomas Ryan.
“Wife's High-Risk Pregnancy.” 30 Mar. 2019.
“Maternal
Mortality.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization,
16 Feb. 2018, www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternal-mortality.
Merelli, Annalisa, and
Annalisa Merelli. “What's Killing America's New Mothers?” Quartz,
Quartz, 14 Feb. 2018, qz.com/1108193/whats-killing-americas-new-mothers/.
Montagne, Renee. “Many
Women Come Close To Death In Childbirth.” NPR, NPR, 11 Mar. 2018,
www.npr.org/2018/03/11/592272083/many-women-come-close-to-death-in-childbirth.
Ollove, Michael. “A
Shocking Number of U.S. Women Still Die of Childbirth. California Is Doing
Something about That.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Nov.
2018, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-shocking-number-of-us-women-still-die-from-childbirth-california-is-doing-something-about-that/2018/11/02/11042036-d7af-11e8-a10f-b51546b10756_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b5eb1705a0f2.
Victoria
Allen Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail. “Deadly Pregnancy Complication
Is Caused by the Immune System Rejecting the Baby, Study Finds.” Daily Mail
Online, Associated Newspapers, 12 Dec. 2016, www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4025520/Deadly-pregnancy-complication-caused-immune-rejecting-baby-study-finds.html
Website. “Frequently
Asked Questions about Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome.” Preeclampsia
Foundation Official Site, 18 May 2018,
www.preeclampsia.org/health-information/faqs/#preeclampsia.
Website. “Frequently
Asked Questions about Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome.” Preeclampsia
Foundation Official Site, 18 May 2018,
www.preeclampsia.org/health-information/faqs/#preeclampsia.
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