Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/series/jane-crow/)
Women’s eNews is using the term Jane Crow to describe the specific practices, laws and customs that constrict the lives of U.S. women of African descent.
Our current focus in this series is the extraordinarily high maternal mortality rate among African American women. As of this writing, Women’s eNews is not aware of any significant research that even attempts to explain why African American women die three-to-four times more often than white women due to pregnancy or related complications. This has been true since at least 1915 and it has not changed in the seven years we have been reporting the story.
Getting hospitals to stop estimating blood loss and start quantifying it—going from “EBL to QBL”–is now a major goal of an effort to reduce postpartum hemorrhage, a leading cause of maternal death that disproportionately afflicts black women.
As California bucks the U.S. trend in worsening maternal health, a project focused on two major risks–obstetric hemorrhage and preeclampsia–is gaining notice. Next year it will start targeting unnecessary C-sections among first-time mothers.
Georgia ranks as the deadliest state in the country for women giving birth. Doctors practicing in the state’s poor rural communities, where the population is often mainly black, detail the challenges they face at the heart of this health care crisis.
Black women are more likely to die of labor or pregnancy complications than white counterparts. The data can be found in an undated report quietly posted by the city’s health department.
A 58-hospital project that includes Georgia, the state with the highest rate of maternal deaths, is trying to reduce the threat of postpartum bleeding. An obstetric nurse involved with the project says delivery teams need to drill more to avert deadly emergencies.