Black women in the US are 3-4 times more likely to die than white women from a pregnancy-related cause and overall the US has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. These deaths are preventable.
Dr. Monica McLemore, a Professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing, says we should stop blaming women for their own deaths and instead address the underlying social and healthcare drivers that impact pregnancy outcomes. In other words, we need to focus on the other 80.
We discuss:
Monica says we need to change our views on scientific evidence:
“There is no way we're going to get … changes in health outcomes at a population level if you don't bring the social and the clinical together, it's just not happening. And so that requires a change in mindset of the scientific community about what is evidence, who generates evidence, who can contribute to evidence, what evidence is needed and what methods are we going to use to obtain said evidence? Because community is over extraction. They are over participating in studies and not getting anything back. They are over funding science as taxpayers and not being able to access it.”
Relevant Links
CDC’s Report on Maternal Mortality
JAMA Articles on trends in maternal mortality:
Summary of JAMA webinar on maternal mortality
Op-Ed: How We Can Reimagine Black Maternal Health in the Changed Landscape of Dobbs
Centering the health of mothers
To Prevent Women from Dying in Childbirth First Stop Blaming Them
About Our Guest
Monica McLemore is a preeminent scholar of antiracist birth equity research, community-informed methods, and policy translation. Dr. McLemore is a Professor in the Department of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Nursing from The College of New Jersey in 1993 after declaring at eight years old that she would become a nurse. She has a Master’s in Public Health from San Francisco State University and a PhD in Oncology Genomics at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s worked her entire career in reproductive health, rights, and justice. Monica retired from active...
