The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Linares testifies for maternal mortality bill
State Sen. Art Linares, R-Westbrook, testified before the Legislature’s Public Health Committee recently, encouraging passage of legislation to create a maternity mortality review committee within the Department of Public Health.
It is proposed bill 304, An Act Establishing A Maternity Mortality Review Committee Within The Department Of Public Health.
“The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries. One organization estimated that 23.5 mothers die for every 100,000 births,” Linares said in a prepared statemwent. “This information is, and should be shocking. While the rates of mothers dying before, during, or after birth have been dropping in other nations, between 1990 and 2015, it has gone up 56 percent in the United States.”
Epidemiologists credit poor recordkeeping as both the reason better numbers are not available and the reason the rates have risen so dramatically, according to the release.
“The key to understanding and improving the maternal mortality rate is better recordkeeping,” Linares said, adding that Connecticut does not have an established method for tracking the number of and reason for maternal deaths.
“As has happened in other countries, the collection and assessment of maternal mortality data will help identify reasons for the deaths,” the release said. “This data can then be used to identify and implement health care measures that can be taken to prevent future maternal deaths.
“Pregnancy and the birth of a child should be a happy, healthy occasion for both mother and child. We must give the health care community every available means to achieve that.”
Linares represents the communities of Chester, Clinton, Colchester, Deep River, East Haddam, East Hampton, Essex, Haddam, Lyme, Old Saybrook, Portland and Westbrook.