A new report makes a series of recommendations on how to combat Louisiana’s high rate of maternal deaths – with Black pregnant women continuing to die at much higher rates than White pregnant women. That’s according to the Louisiana Department of Health’s 2020 Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review Annual Report.
As Rosemary Westwood with Louisiana Public Radio reported in our Red River Radio News’ Friday AM Newscast, the report, released on Wednesday, reveals that 37% of all births in Louisiana that year were to Black women, yet they accounted for 62% of all pregnancy-associated deaths, defined as a death that occurs during pregnancy or within one year after pregnancy, regardless of cause. Of the 82 pregnancy-associated deaths in 2020, researchers discovered 78% of them were not related to the pregnancy. In those cases, the leading causes of death included accidental overdose, homicide, motor vehicle collision, and cancer.
The data shows that 13 out of 15 pregnancy-related deaths occurred among black women. The top causes of deaths in those cases were cardiomyopathy, accidental overdose, infection, and cardiovascular conditions. The report concludes that one cannot fully understand the racial disparities without first understanding how health inequities factor into the overall equation.
That’s why the report recommends addressing them directly, including combating bias and racism in pregnancy care and improving screenings for intimate partner violence and substance use disorder.
Researchers concluded that 94% of pregnancy-related deaths, and 80% of pregnancy-associated deaths, were potentially preventable.
