Dangers of childbirth: Why are more moms dying after babies are born?

In india ., new and expecting moms die at a rate that’s higher than other developed countries, and
cases of maternal death are on the rise. Rajasthan is among a handful of states with the highest
maternal mortality rates.

Today,  we looks in why Dangers of Childbirth, increase.

A woman’s risk for dying from pregnancy-related causes does not end once her baby arrives.

“People think that once the birth is over, that that’s the acute event, but many of these things happen
after delivery,”

“Blood clots in the legs that go to the lungs happen after delivery; many of the hemorrhages happen
after delivery; the heart failure cases almost uniformly happen after delivery. So there are quite a
number of conditions that can impact a mom’s health, far beyond the act of having that baby.”

Recently compiled data from maternal mortality review committees around the country show the
majority of pregnancy-related deaths occur within 42 days of the end of pregnancy. During that time,
women most commonly die of infection, followed by hemorrhage and cardiovascular and coronary
conditions. The same report classifies 66.7 percent of these deaths as preventable.

That is one reason why the Indian College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists  revised its
recommendations  for postpartum care in April 2010 . Previously, women were discharge from hospital
just after delivery and advised to meet with their doctors six weeks after giving birth. But up to 40
percent of women skip the appointment.
So now recommendation is that patient should not dischsrge from hospital before 48 hrs.

Now, the group recommends that postpartum care be treated as an ongoing process — not just a single
visit to the hospital — and that all women have contact with their obstetrician-gynecologist or other
care providers within the first three weeks.

“It’s very important to change when we do postpartum care — move it earlier into the postpartum time
frame, to do outreach to women who have pregnancy complications like high blood pressure or
diabetes, so that we’re working with them much sooner than two weeks or six weeks,”

So now far most important to teaching patients to recognize warning signs of potential health issues
after their baby arrives is also needed.

However, this can be difficult — the majority of mom’s attention is on the newborn, not herself, and
symptoms such as fatigue, swelling and headaches can be part of a normal recovery.

“Sometimes women just don’t understand how important it is to get back to their providers to say, ‘I’m
not feeling well.’ And it’s hard, it’s very hard, because there are many times that those kind of
symptoms are totally benign, but sometimes they are not,”

“And so it’s a matter of working with the women, working with the providers, so that we get that
information out so that if something doesn’t seem right or feel right, contact your provider, get in, get
the care that you need because we know that there are women that have died in that postpartum
window because they have had high blood pressure or horrible headaches, and they just thought it was
part of being postpartum and that was what to expect.”
One of my patient after discharge from hospital , she noticed a headache she couldn’t shake. She also
had swelling and spinal pain. Called me and I told her to keep an eye on it. After that, she didn’t give
it much thought.

When the headache persisted, she came to see me and eventually ended up in the emergency room,
where she was diagnosed with postpartum pre-eclampsia — a rare condition that results from high
blood pressure and excess protein in the urine. If left untreated, it can be life-threatening. “

All family members are all in baby mode at this point,”

for providers, it’s to listen to patients.

““So when we say we’re tired, well, everyone is tired having a baby. We need to learn some language
to help women say, ‘No, I am so tired I can’t get up. I am beyond sleep deprived. This is a different
thing.’”

The Indian College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ new recommendations also say that early
intervention can help providers stay on top of a woman’s physical recovery from birth, as well as her
mood and emotional well-being — both of which are leading underlying causes of death after
childbirth.

“About 80 percent of women experience feelings of anxiety, worry and unhappiness shortly after
childbirth, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.  Fifteen percent experience more severe
symptoms of postpartum depression.

Data analyzed from the nine maternal mortality review committees show mental health conditions were
responsible for 4.1 percent of pregnancy-related deaths within 42 days of the end of pregnancy. That
number jumps to 16.2 percent between 43 days and one year after the end of a pregnancy.

“Postpartum depression is real. It’s something that we see,”

“Suicides are real, and we, as a community, need to understand that. We need to have the support, we
need to have the understanding and the availability of providers who can identify these problems and
take care of women. Because with a newborn, you’re overwhelmed and everybody’s concerned about
what’s going on and you’re breast-feeding every two to three hours and are exhausted, and nobody’s
saying, ‘How are you?’ And it’s really important that we do that because we need to save women’s
lives; we need to prevent those suicides from happening.”

A continuum of care 
Department of Health, said focusing on a woman’s health before pregnancy is also important in
reducing rates of maternal mortality.

“Healthier women have healthier birth outcomes,”, women who are overweight or obese at the time of
pregnancy are more likely to be at risk for maternal mortality.

To ensure more women have access to high-quality prenatal care and neonatal care. It also requires
score cards for all birthing facilities in D.C. to assess quality improvement during delivery and post-
delivery care.
“We know a lot about what keeps patients safe. We know a lot about what high-quality services are,
and there’s a lot of evidence about what should be done for women, especially as it relates to maternity
care, that we didn’t know 15 and 20 and 30 years ago,”.

“And we need to be applying those principles and concepts to make sure that we reduce maternal
mortality and reduce infant mortality, and, overall, improve perinatal health in this country.”