NPR and ProPublica teamed up for a six-month long investigation on maternal mortality in the U.S. Among our key findings:
- More American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than any other developed country. Only in the U.S. has the rate of women who die been rising.
- There's a hodgepodge of hospital protocols for dealing with potentially fatal complications, allowing for treatable complications to become lethal.
- Hospitals — including those with intensive care units for newborns — can be woefully unprepared for a maternal emergency.
- Federal and state funding show only 6 percent of block grants for "maternal and child health" actually go to the health of mothers.
- In the U.S, some doctors entering the growing specialty of maternal-fetal medicine were able to complete that training without ever spending time in a labor-delivery unit.
Read and listen to the full report here.
Nina Martin is a reporter for ProPublica.
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