Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world, study finds
As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period
The rate of Texas women who died from complications related to pregnancy doubled from 2010 to 2014, a new study has found, for an estimated maternal mortality rate that is unmatched in any other state and the rest of the developed world.
The finding comes from a report, appearing in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, that the maternal mortality rate in the United States increased between 2000 and 2014, even while the rest of the world succeeded in reducing its rate. Excluding California, where maternal mortality declined, and Texas, where it surged, the estimated number of maternal deaths per 100,000 births rose to 23.8 in 2014 from 18.8 in 2000 – or about 27%.
But the report singled out Texas for special concern, saying the doubling of mortality rates in a two-year period was hard to explain “in the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval”.
From 2000 to the end of 2010, Texas’s estimated maternal mortality rate hovered between 17.7 and 18.6 per 100,000 births. But after 2010, that rate had leaped to 33 deaths per 100,000, and in 2014 it was 35.8. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 600 women died for reasons related to their pregnancies.
No other state saw a comparable increase.
In the wake of the report, reproductive health advocates are blaming the increase on Republican-led budget cuts that decimated the ranks of Texas’s reproductive healthcare clinics. In 2011, just as the spike began, the Texas state legislature cut $73.6m from the state’s family planning budget of $111.5m. The two-thirds cut forced more than 80 family planning clinics to shut down across the state. The remaining clinics managed to provide services – such as low-cost or free birth control, cancer screenings and well-woman exams – to only half as many women as before.
At the same time, Texas eliminated all Planned Parenthood clinics – whether or not they provided abortion services – from the state program that provides poor women with preventive healthcare. Previously, Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas offered cancer screenings and contraception to more than 130,000 women.
In 2013, Texas restored funding for the family planning budget to original levels. But the healthcare providers who survived the initial cuts reported struggles to restore services to their original levels.
Indeed, the report said it was “puzzling” that Texas’s maternal mortality rate rose only modestly from 2000 to 2010 before doubling between 2011 and 2012. The researchers, hailing from the University of Maryland, Boston University’s school of public health and Stanford University’s medical school, called for further study. But they noted that starting in 2011, Texas drastically reduced the number of women’s health clinics within its borders.
Texas is one of several southern states where health officials say there is a risk of a local outbreak. But about half the state lacks ready access to OB-GYN care, making it difficult for women to obtain contraception or for pregnant women to confirm the health of their babies. Just this month, Texas’s health department drew fire for allocating $1.6m of the $18m the state budgets for low-income women’s family planning to an anti-abortion group that does not provide basic health services.
“There is a need to redouble efforts to prevent maternal deaths and improve maternity care for the 4 million US women giving birth each year,” the authors said.
2 opmerkingen:
NATO's invasion of Sardinia .....
The people of Sardinia have a heritage of resistance in their blood and they are not taking this NATO led militarization and destruction of their environment lying down. They are demanding transparency and truth with regards to the toxic materials being tested. They demand full de-militarization of the island, the cleansing and decontamination of the island and its waters.
Once more paradise has been turned into hell on earth by the military industrial complex and its ruling parasites in NATO.
https://thewallwillfall.org/2016/07/14/natos-military-enslavement-and-toxic-invasion-of-sardinia/
Wat de meeste mensen zich niet realiseren: Dat het buitengewoon veel verstandiger geweest was om in 1948 een deel van Texas aan de overlevende Joden te schenken! Die staat is ongeveer 10x de oppervlakte van Israël (vergeleken * alleen in de staat Georgia al wonen zo'n slordige 55 miljoen mensen, tegen zo'n 8 miljoen in Israël!), dan was de mensheid een enorme, toenemende hoop, ellende bespaard gebleven!!!
Het is van een belachelijke proportie wat er toe tot nu toe mee is aangericht, zo enorm zoek de verhoudingen zijn sinds een klein groepje mensen deze apartheidsstaat gesticht, op een klein stukje toegeëigende grond in de regio, die zich uitverkoren wanen door een imginaire vriend wiens naam niet uitgesproken mag worden, de hele wereld sindsdien in gevaar brengt met hulp van, dan wel onder aanvoering van, de VS. En haar kolonisten gaan gewoon verder met annexeren van Palestijnse grond.
*Let ook even op die laatste rubriek over geboortecijfers, cijfers die welliswaar ontleend zijn aan het CIA factbook dat, hoe kan het anders, een uiterst eenzijdig beeld schetst van de historische conflicten.
Hetzelfde geldt dus voor die andere cijfers, met statistiek liegen kan. Vergelijk de Joden niet met Palestijnen en noem hen Arabieren. Het ging mij voornamelijk om de proportie van het land. En dat in vergelijking tot de hoeveelheid ellende die is veroorzaakt door de grond van Palestijnen te annexeren.
Iets dat tot op de dag van vandaag doorgaat. Kolonisten kunnen er oogluikend mee doorgaan land in te pikken. Oogluiken doen we allemaal.
Een reactie posten