Nearly Dying In Childbirth: Why Preventable Complications Are Growing In U.S.
Leah Bahrencu's kidneys and liver shut down. Samantha Blackwell spent a month in a coma. Cindel Pena suffered heart failure. Heather Lavender lost her uterus.
Every year in the U.S., nearly 4 million women give birth, the vast majority without anything going amiss for themselves or their babies. But more than 135 expectant and new mothers a day — or roughly 50,000 a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — endure dangerous and even life-threatening complications that often leave them wounded, weakened, traumatized, financially devastated, unable to bear more children, or searching in vain for answers about what went wrong.
For the past year, ProPublica and NPR have been examining why the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. That relative high rate of death, though, has overshadowed the far more pervasive problem that experts call "severe maternal morbidity."
Each year in the U.S., 700 to 900 women die related to pregnancy and childbirth. But for each of those women who die, up to 70 suffer hemorrhages, organ failure or other significant complications. That amounts to more than 1 percent of all births. The annual cost of these near deaths to women, their families, taxpayers and the health care system runs into billions of dollars.
"There's this misconception that these complications are rare," said Kristen Terlizzi, whose uterus, appendix and part of her bladder were removed in 2014 because of a life-threatening placenta condition called placenta accreta. Terlizzi co-founded the National Accreta Foundation, which works to prevent deaths caused by the condition. "We [women] get brushed off — 'The risk is not a big deal,' " she said. "But it is."
Better care could have prevented or alleviated many of these complications, experts say. Maternal morbidity encompasses a spectrum of problems, from moderately dangerous to near deadly, and proper medical attention can stop treatable conditions from spiraling out of control. In of all women admitted for delivery over a period of 30 months at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, researchers found "opportunity
