Moms of color dying in childbirth at rates 4x higher than white counterparts

It's a shocking trend - mothers in the United States are dying due to complications in pregnancy and child-birth at rate higher than most other developed countries. For women of color, that rate is astronomically higher than their white counterparts.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, black mothers in the U.S. die at three-to-four times the rate of white mothers.  Black woman are 22 percent more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71 percent more likely to die from cervical cancer, but 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes. The CDC also says nearly half of all maternal deaths are preventable.

"High income, highly educated black women still do more poorly than white women," said Dr. Laura Riley, director of labor and delivery at Mass. General Hospital. "That in and of itself if truly concerning."

Pregnant and new black moms in the U.S. die at about the same rate as women in countries like Mexico and Uzbekistan.

Massachusetts is ranked first in access to health care and mothers are still dying. Doctors like Riley say the federal and state research and money has been focused on babies, not moms.

"It did surprise me. It did. Because you walk in having certain expectations and as far as the quality of care that you're going to get, obviously this is a very important time in any woman's life," said new mother Beverly Guerrero.  "The expectation is to have that support. That listening ear."

Guerrero safely delivered her son and a baby girl 9 months ago, but her first experience with her obstetrician is part of a growing trend for mothers of color. She says she often felt dismissed by her doctor and as a new mom just stopped sharing her concerns.

"She just, her demeanor was like, kind of dismissive. That would be the word I would use," said Guerrero. "My relationship kind of changed with her and I felt like maybe I shouldn't share… Let's go to the office visits and do the check-ups as normal and I just won't bring any kind of other concerns or to her."

Dr. Riley said that while risk factors like heart disease and stress contribute to black maternal mortality rates, health care systems need to do better with implicit bias training and staff diversity.  She said moms need to start asking questions.

"We are forced and must investigate all of those aspects of care to figure out how we can do better," said Dr. Riley.  "I think there's been less attention paid to the mother and I think now we're realizing, gosh, without the mother there are no more children."

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