Women's eNews (https://womensenews.org/tag/maternal-health/)
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.
The Brooklyn Library’s young adult literacy program includes workshops on stop-and-frisk policing, urban farming and HIV/AIDS. But we needed to offer more to young women with unexpected pregnancies and lots of concerns.
This week’s big gathering in Denmark also features the McKinsey Institute’s latest research on the wage gap and a new philanthropic initiative co-chaired by Melinda Gates and Mette-Marit, crown princess of Norway.
A U.K. proposal sounds like a Mother’s Day present for U.S. women looking for more maternity care choices from their private insurance. It could also help tackle poor birth outcomes in the U.S., particularly among black women.
“There’s been a huge collapse of the health system in rural areas,” one doctor said. “I still have patients that don’t have a car or live so far out that they don’t have access to a bus system.”
Instead of celebrating progress, we have to ask why we fare so poorly compared to many other countries. From being underpaid to losing abortion access, it’s a depressing list. But let’s not look away.
It’s a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide and my research indicates women often can’t identify or describe the condition even if they have it. We’ve developed a low-literacy, low-cost information tool to help.
It starts with a focus on such preventable killers as obstetric hemorrhage, preeclampsia and blood clot embolisms. “The goal is that every hospital in the country should implement maternity safety bundles; a standard set of best practices,” says a doctor leading the effort.
The recent study finds that maternity centers may be part of the reason behind the country’s racial breastfeeding gap. A film released this week, in honor of Black Breastfeeding Week, is aimed at changing the trend.
When a mother posted a photo of herself nursing at her college graduation on a breastfeeding Facebook page, a flurry of disapproval quickly ignited all over social media. Questions are being raised about how public breastfeeding should be.