Opinion: It will take a village to solve the epidemic of maternal deaths in the U.S.
The phrase “maternal deaths” tends to conjure up images of awful complications of delivery: uncontrollable bleeding after birth or the Cesarean section that goes terribly wrong. But these heartbreaking catastrophes account for the minority of maternal deaths.
Two-thirds of them happen either before birth or more than a week after delivery. In most cases, the woman is home when whatever will kill her — uncontrolled high blood pressure, heart failure, blood clots, suicide, drug overdose — initially strikes.
