A commission to look into maternal mortality in D.C. will be funded as of Oct. 1.
Statistics show D.C.’s rate is almost double the national average, and the World Health Organization says more American women die from childbirth-related complications than in any other country in the developed world.
The most recent statistics from the decade that ended in 2014 found 41 deaths for every 100,000 births.
“But if you were to break that number down, east and west, which is really going to break down on a lot of other lines, which are going to be race, class, income, you're going to see a huge disparity between east and west,” Councilman Charles Allen said. “So the number in the east is probably higher than 41, and that's unacceptable.”
Some of the problems are easy to identify: lack of pre-natal care, lack of access to care on the city's east side where hospitals have closed or stopped offering maternity services, and some women just don’t know what services are available.
Lynn Erdman, head of the Association of Women's Health, Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses, wants women to know how important it is to get care after giving birth, too.
“About 50 percent of women die after they leave the hospital, and that's a scary number,” she said.
Health
Allen has passed legislation to create a committee to look into this issue.
Allen said it's crucial that health care providers and non-profits work together to offer the best options possible.
“Whether you're looking at a midwife and a doula, whether you're looking at your more traditional Ob/Gyn, those are the providers that can create that entire network so that every mother and mother-to-be is going to have the access to care that they need and make sure they know where they can get it,” he said.
Allen’s plan to study solutions that will save mothers’ lives passed the full Council and was approved by Congress.
Maryland and Virginia already have similar panels in place.
