Tag: Midwives

. Group of pregnant women and women with children. Vector illustration

#MaternalHealthAwarenessDay: Three Policies to Push

Joelle Boxer Leave a comment

By Joelle Boxer

Today is Maternal Health Awareness Day, focused on the theme “Access in Crisis.”

“Crisis” is the right word, yet still an understatement. In the U.S., for every 100,000 live births in 2021, nearly 33 pregnant people lost their lives. In Norway, that number was 2. Black and Native American women in the U.S. are particularly at risk, with death rates 2-3 times higher than those of white women, due to structural racism.

What can the law do to prevent these deaths? Medicaid pays for more than 40% of births in the U.S., covering 64% of Black mothers and 66% of Native American mothers. Examining efforts at the federal and state level, I highlight three options, leveraging Medicaid as a policy lever.

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A mother holds her baby close to her chest and gazes at their face

Maternity Scandal Hits the NHS

John Tingle Leave a comment

By John Tingle

Unfortunately, it’s never too long before a major NHS patient safety crisis hits the newspaper headlines in the United Kingdom. The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust (SATH) maternity scandal has just become a major breaking U.K. patient safety news story.

Shaun Lintern reports in The Independent:

Hundreds of families whose babies died or were seriously injured at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust do not even know their cases have been identified for investigation in the biggest maternity scandal to ever hit the NHS… Dozens of babies and three mothers died in the trust’s maternity wards, where a ‘toxic culture’ stretched back to 1979, according to an interim report leaked to The Independent this week.

Patient Safety Scandals

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