Week 1 Assignment: Topic Proposal and Problem Statement Paper
The United States is currently facing a crisis where African American women experience low birth rates and death from their pregnancies. National Park Radio (NPR) recently gave a release to an article that affirmed that the rate of death of black mothers was three times that of white women. A pregnancy mortality surveillance system that observes all deaths resulting from pregnancies is operated by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dating back from 2011-2014, a statistic has been reported indicating 40.0 deaths out of the 10,000 live births for African American women. A contrast figure also shows that only 12.4 deaths out of the 10,000 live births occur among white women (2018). Such a pattern gets experienced more in metropolitan areas and the small rural regions. A lot of factors have amounted to this current state of crisis. On the maternal mortality statistics, it is depicted that there is insufficient quality care for some racial groups among women. Other aspects include timely visits for prenatal care, age, diet, exercise, smoking, and inadequate support. There’s the need to establish preventing interventions for pregnant African American women to counter the rates of maternal mortality and low birthing results.
Poor birthing outcomes pose detrimental impacts on an infant’s development, which further proceeds into its adult health and way of life. The University of Michigan Institute of Social Research (ISR) notes that children born with a low birth weight have a lower chance (30% less) of having excellent conditions in their health in their childhood days. Additionally, their reading capabilities, comprehension of a passage, and mathematics achievement were also stated to be lower (2018). Prenatal care is quite critical in the prevention of such outcomes. Programs like Medicaid are quite essential and may assist in prevention measures. However, prenatal care can get exorbitant. Also, without the knowledge of such programs, one cannot register into them. There is the need for the presence of community advocates who would play the role of explaining the procedure of writing into Medicaid so that the expense may not be an influential factor in the adverse decisions concerning seeking prenatal care for women with low income.
Women get advised to consult a physician every month in their first trimester in pregnancy and bi-weekly to weekly in their final trimester and the weeks before their delivery for a health pregnancy (2018). Continuous visits to the doctor are essential in the early identification of problems hence initiating treatment. Although there is the solution of Medicaid for women with low incomes, proper healthcare access remains a challenge. Some factors that prevent health care access include unavailability of maternity care providers, limited support programs for prenatal care, and flawed efforts to recruit women into acquiring health care. Several factors create these barriers to prenatal care within the United States. They can get identified on both systemic and individual levels. Lately, there is a call for taking appropriate measures to counter prenatal care barriers in the U.S.
References
Mclemore, M. R., Altman, M. R., Cooper, N., Williams, S., Rand, L., & Franck, L. (2018). Health care experiences of pregnant, birthing, and postnatal women of color at risk for preterm birth. Social Science & Medicine,201, 127-135. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.02.013
Reproductive Health. (2018, August 07). Retrieved June 20, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/pregnancy-mortality-surveillance-system.htm