Women's Health Archives - Red Wine and Blue

Do This: Tell Your Friends About The Maternal Mortality Crisis

rwbdrew — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 06:00:41 +0000

Now you’ve read about how maternal mortality rates in the U.S. are drastically increasing, and how that means more women are dying. You also heard from Georgia Representative Jasmine Clark about how access to preventative healthcare can help women have healthier pregnancies and reduce our maternal mortality rates. Doctors and medical experts have solutions to this crisis, so we can’t let these tragic deaths continue to happen.

So what can we do about it? Raise our voices! Share this information with your friends and family, and let’s demand better reproductive healthcare access for ALL women! We’ve made it super-easy with our social media share tool. Start below, and with just a few clicks, you can share this information and earn your Easy A today!

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Watch This: Maternal Mortality Rates in the U.S.

rwbdrew — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 06:00:08 +0000

Last week we learned about the horrifically-high maternal mortality rate in the U.S., and how women of color are most affected. Recently our own Jasmine Clark, co-host of The Suburban Women Problem podcast and a Georgia State Representative with a PhD in Microbiology, spoke on the floor of the Georgia State House about maternal mortality rates. The Speaker of the House cut her off and denied her the full 2 minutes to speak.

We find it particularly offensive for a Black woman to be silenced when she is speaking about this crisis in maternal healthcare, and we aren’t going to be quiet about this issue.

Watch Jasmine’s speech below, and stay tuned next week for an opportunity to raise your voice about the maternal mortality crisis!

The post Watch This: Maternal Mortality Rates in the U.S. appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.

Read This: Maternal Mortality Rates in the U.S.

rwbdrew — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 16:30:06 +0000

Did you know that the U.S. is the only developed country in the world with a high maternal mortality rate? “Maternal mortality” refers to when women die during pregnancy, childbirth, or shortly after the end of their pregnancy due to complications. In 2021, we were ranked 55th in the world for maternal mortality, despite having an advanced healthcare system. Other developed nations rank much higher, like the Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Australia, and most of Europe.

If that’s not bad enough, our maternal mortality rate has actually been increasing in recent years! We are moving in the wrong direction and more women are dying.

In 2021 the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. To put that into perspective, 1,205 women died from maternal causes. That’s a 40% increase in just one year! Those women were our sisters, our daughters, our partners, and our friends.

And women of color are much more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth than white women. In 2021, Native American women’s maternal mortality rate was 4.5 times that of white women, and Black women’s rate was 2.6 times the rate of white women.

Although not all states track maternal mortality rates, we do know that certain regions, like the south, have higher maternal mortality. And states with stricter abortion laws often have the highest maternal mortality rates. With abortion restrictions increasing throughout the United States, and the resulting deserts of maternal healthcare, experts fear the maternal mortality rate will continue to increase in the U.S.

That means more women will die — people we know and love, possibly even ourselves — due to complications with pregnancy, childbirth or the immediate postpartum period, and that’s unacceptable.

The big question is, what can we do about it? You just took the first step by reading about the problem. Stay tuned for more info and how to take action. Thanks for completing your Easy A action for this week.

The post Read This: Maternal Mortality Rates in the U.S. appeared first on Red Wine and Blue.