Category Archives: Maternal mortality

‘I felt humiliated’: parents respond to NHS maternity care racial bias inquiry

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Black, Asian and ethnic minority women report being denied pain relief or feeling unheard to panel investigating mortality disparity

Feeling manipulated into having medical procedures, dismissed by professionals and labelled with racial stereotypes are among the complaints of parents who responded to a national inquiry into racial injustice in UK maternity care.

A panel established by the charity Birthrights is investigating discrimination ranging from explicit racism to racial bias and microaggressions that amount to poorer care.

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More deaths, worse care? Inquiry opens into NHS maternity ‘systemic racism’

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Childbirth rights group supports examination into disproportionate health outcomes

An urgent inquiry to investigate how alleged systemic racism in the NHS manifests itself in maternity care will be launched on Tuesday with support from the UK charity Birthrights.

The inquiry will apply a human- rights lens to examine how claimed racial injustice – from explicit racism to bias – is leading to poorer health outcomes in maternity care for ethnic minority groups.

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Lagos traffic creating ‘life or death’ situations for women trying to reach hospital – report

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Study of pregnant women travelling to health facilities found journeys took up to four times longer than online maps suggested

The heavy traffic and bad roads of Lagos have been baffling online mapping tools with potential “life and death implications” for people trying to reach the city’s hospitals, research has found.

Researchers looked at cases of pregnant women trying to reach hospital in Nigeria’s most populous city, infamous for its roads, and found they faced a journey of up to four times longer than computers and satellites suggest, which mean the models for access to healthcare facilities are also out of kilter.

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Black women in the UK four times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth

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Disparity with white women shows need for action, doctors say, despite slight improvement in mortality rate

Black women are still four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth in the UK, and women from Asian ethnic backgrounds face twice the risk, according to a new report.

The data shows a slight narrowing of the divide – last year’s report found black women were five times more likely to die – but experts say that is statistically insignificant and not a sign of progress.

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How does a pregnant woman get to hospital when there’s no road? By stretcher …

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Women from the mountains of Uttarakhand in India have been guaranteed palanquins so that they can reach vital transport

Narendra Kumar is going to become a father in early January. His wife, Kavita, became pregnant two months after they got married in February and since then he has been worrying about getting her to hospital when the time comes.

It’s a steep three-kilometre walk along a narrow, unpaved mountain path through oak and rhododendron forests from their village of Gwalakot to the main road where they could pick up a car or ambulance to ferry them to hospital in Nainital.

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‘Lives have been lost’: Pregnant women in Zimbabwe forced to pay bribes when giving birth

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Two women took Harare authorities to court to force them to reopen 42 maternity clinics

In agonising labour pain and turned away from a Harare health centre, Aurage Katume feared that, like many other Zimbabwean women, she could lose her unborn baby.

She struggled to another clinic in the country’s capital. The midwives there were not ready to help her either.

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Uganda court rules government must prioritise maternal health in ‘huge shift’

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Ruling is result of lawsuit filed over deaths in childbirth of two women due to staff negligence and lack of facilities

Health rights activists in Uganda have welcomed a landmark court ruling that the government should increase its health budget to ensure women receive decent maternal healthcare services.

The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed in 2011 over the deaths in childbirth of two women – Jennifer Anguko and Sylvia Nalubowa – in a public health facility.

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Number of women dying in childbirth way off track to meet worldwide targets

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UN figures show slow decrease in maternal mortality rate, with rates on the rise in countries including the US

The number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth has fallen by more than a third since 2000, according to new UN figures, but the rate of decline remains way off track to meet global targets to cut maternal deaths.

In the US maternal death rates have increased by over 50% and progress in reducing deaths in the 10 countries with the highest rates has slowed since 2000.

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Cost of global push to prevent women dying in childbirth to increase sixfold

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As Trump funding drought continues, UN figures show billions more will be needed to meet global target on maternal mortality

The cost of preventing women from dying in childbirth is projected to increase sixfold by 2030, requiring billions of dollars to achieve global targets, according to the UN.

The estimate was released by the UN population fund (UNFPA) on Thursday, offering a snapshot of the scale of the challenge the agency has set itself to end preventable maternal deaths by 2030.

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‘I’ll never have another child’: the mothers failed by Mexico’s hospitals

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In one of Mexico’s poorest states, women from minority backgrounds are increasingly at risk of abusive treatment during pregnancy and childbirth

Nancy Martínez was 17 when she went into labour. Though her age meant she was considered a high-risk pregnancy, she was left alone for several hours without monitoring or pain medication.

Nurses told Martínez to be quiet and put up with the pain, while doctors mocked her mother, Nancy Ceron Diaz, denying her information about her daughter’s condition.

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