AL.com: Nearly 70% of Alabama’s maternal deaths could have been prevented

Alabama’s first report on the deaths of pregnant mothers found that nearly 70 percent of those deaths could have been prevented.

The Maternal Mortality Review Committee also recommended that the state expand Medicaid to “allow women to receive needed healthcare before, during, and after pregnancies.”

Expanding Medicaid could address some of the contributing factors in the deaths, the report found, including lack of coordinated care and access to care.

In early 2020, the Legislature allocated almost $500,000 to examine why women in Alabama die from pregnancy-related or associated conditions.

“Alabama is working hard to make change,” said Britta Cedergren, associate director of postpartum care with the Alabama March of Dimes, one of the organizations that pushed for full funding of the committee. “Change is slow, but change is happening and that change starts with improved data.”

The funding for the state’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee followed reporting from Reckon and AL.com highlighting the state’s failure to address maternal death and lobbying by nonprofit and state medical organizations.

Other key findings of the report include:

• Mental health and substance use disorders contributed to nearly half the deaths studied.

• Two-thirds of all deaths occurred weeks or months after childbirth.

• Cardiovascular-related conditions were the leading underlying causes in pregnancy-related deaths.

Find out more about the report at Reckon by clicking here.