Last year, Senator Becca Rausch, (D-Massachusetts), gave a floor speech presenting a bill regarding racial maternal health disparities. In that speech Rausch said, “Mr. President, we are in the biggest racial justice movement in the history of the world.”
Rausch and her colleagues be- came a vital part of the movement against health-related injustices through legislation.
The bill Rausch and her colleagues drafted addresses life-threatening racial disparities in maternal health and mortality for Black and brown women.
“Among the developed nations of the world, only the United States continues to allow birthing people to die in increasing numbers,” Rausch added. “And, the outcomes are staggeringly worse for people of color who experienced a 238% increase in the risk of maternal death between 1978 and 2015.”
According to Rausch, health disparities still exist.
“The data is pretty clear and has been clear for, really, forever if you look back far enough. And frankly, we’re seeing health disparities persist and perpetuate in a variety of circumstances even now.”
According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics, Black babies have low birth rates and are more likely to die than white babies.
When asked why those disparities exist, Dr. Jennie Joseph, LM, CPM and chief executive officer of Common Sense Childbirth in Orlando, said, “The gaps that we see that cause these poor out- comes are based on systematic and historical and racial decisions and ways of thinking.”
‘Near miss’ rates
Joseph explained that statistics showing racial health disparities could be even higher than what was reported based on what the professional maternity world calls a “near miss.” A near miss is when a woman has compromised health issues in her prenatal, labor and delivery or in postpartum but she survives those health problems.
“The fact that you don’t die, leaves you in a real no man’s land,’’ Joseph said. She added, “You may have been discharged from your childbirth event from the ICU rather than from the postpartum floor, but you still don’t really count be- cause you are still alive.”
