List of ways in which Texas has failed mothers is long
Nearly 69 percent of the U.S. population will be buying flowers this Mother’s Day. In fact, American’s are expected to spend $23.6 billion on Mother’s Day gifts.
Alone, these numbers tell a story— one about how much we care and value motherhood — but other numbers reveal a much different, painful reality.
The maternal mortality rate in the United States has increased by 27 percent since 2000 while it is dropping in every other industrialized nation. In Texas, we have the highest mortality rate in the developed world. Nearly 36 women out of every 100,000 giving birth are dying from a pregnancy-related complication.
Another harrowing statistic: We spend 17.1 percent of our GDP on health care — more than any other country — yet still have 28.5 million people who are uninsured. And in Texas, the uninsured capital of the united states, 21 percent out of an estimated 12.5 million women are uninsured, according to a study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
To understand how much mothers are truly valued, we can look at our own Texas Capitol, where the topic of maternal mortality has been sparingly mentioned. Texas has a Maternal Mortality and Morbidity task force that was created in 2013. In July, it issued six recommendations — but only one was picked up as a bill.
The list of ways in which we have failed mothers — especially mothers of color — is long. This session, we have heard that Texas has a legitimate interest in the health and safety of women. If that is truly the priority, why has this issue been overshadowed by bills aimed at protecting doctors — not mothers — if the latter’s baby is born with a birth defect?
One way that we can begin showing we care for Texas mothers is by changing what happens the moment they become mothers.
Today, women often endure a series of dated, nonevidence-based procedures, such as having to give birth on their backs, early inductions, refusal of food and water during labor, continuous fetal monitoring, drugs and procedures to speed up labor, and a national C-section rate more than double the 10 to 15 percent recommended by the World Health Organization.
Women are also subjected to often subtle psychological, emotional and verbal abuse. Improving Birth’s campaign “Break the Silence” shows how some women have been dismissed, coerced and manipulated by a wide range of health care practitioners.
I will never forget the words of a patient when she described her birth experience while I served as a psychology intern in Mexico: “If they want to kill me at the hospital or I’m going to die at home, I’d rather just die at home.” The young woman, who like me was 23 years old, had been forcibly sterilized and diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she woke up from a hemorrhage that left her in a three-week coma after giving birth.
I was in one of the poorest states in Mexico — with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country — and I remember thinking that nothing like this would ever happen in the United States. I was wrong.
I’ve come to learn that what happens within delivery room walls serves as a mirror to how women are perceived and valued in our society. Quickly, any woman who wants to be active in the decision-making of their birth can be disarmed when they are told they are selfish because they and their baby are alive or when she is said to be ungrateful for complaining about giving birth in this country.
For a industrialized country that spends 17.1 percent of its GDP on health care, the U.S. standard of birth should be much higher than “at least you are both alive.”
Let’s start respecting women in the space where they become mothers. Because giving birth should not be a matter of life and death. Maybe then, rather than using the $23.6 billion spent on Mother’s Day gifts as a measure of how much we value mothers, we can truly say we are part of a nation that truly values and honors motherhood.