Pregnancy-Related Deaths Discussed at Hearing in Oak Lawn

Statement

To Heidi House, the celebration of her toddler son's birthday Sunday was almost miraculous.

That's because House said she went into cardiac arrest at a downstate hospital when she was in labor two years ago.

While Rueger survived, his twin sister, Emery, died 11 hours after she was born. House said she had to be transferred to a different hospital that had a doctor who specialized in handling her health problems.

Last week, House shared her story at a Congressional hearing in the south suburbs that pushed for hospitals to have better trained medical staff to handle maternity programs. The event was held by U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Matteson, at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.

The hearing is part of Kelly's ongoing efforts to combat high pregnancy-related death rates in the United States.

In recent years, the number of women dying nationally from pregnancy and childbirth has climbed drastically while globally the rate has declined. Seven hundred to 900 American mothers die each year, Kelly said. In Illinois, from 2008-2016, an average of 73 women died each year within one year of pregnancy, according to a report released last October by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

"Things have gotten so bad that new moms are twice as likely to die today (nationally) than in 1985," Kelly said. "As with nearly all health disparities, women of color, especially black and Native American moms, bear the burden of this crisis.

"Nationally, black mothers die at three to four times the rate of white mothers … Here in Illinois, black mothers are six times more likely to die, and in Washington State, Native American mothers are eight times more likely to die than their white counterparts."

Tragically, more than half of all maternal deaths are preventable, Kelly said. In Illinois, 72% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable, according to the Department of Public Health report.

"It's clear that we can and must do more to protect mothers' lives," Kelly said.

Last year, Kelly introduced badly needed legislation to help tackle the issue. The Mothers and Offspring Mortality & Morbidity Awareness Act or MOMMA Act calls for extending Medicaid coverage nationally for new moms from 60 days to up to a year after childbirth. The measure remains in the House.

Advocate Aurora Health is among organizations supporting passage of the MOMMA Act nationally.

A focus on care following childbirth, so-called postpartum care, is key, said Dr. James Keller, vice president of medical management, maternal fetal medicine, at Advocate Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn and interim chief medical officer at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

"Many women (nationally) now lose coverage around 60 days post-delivery," he said in testimony submitted for the hearing. "This greatly limits the healthcare system's ability to leverage the mother's continued interaction with the healthcare system to improve her health for a subsequent pregnancy, provide support for optimal spacing of pregnancy and most importantly to improve the life-long health status of the mother."

An example of the negative consequences of short postpartum care for black and Hispanic women is the development of Type 2 diabetes, which is reaching epidemic proportions in this country, he said.

"Ten percent of pregnancies are affected by gestational diabetes," Keller said. "Hispanic mothers are 50% more likely to develop gestational diabetes than white mothers. It is well known that up to 50% of patients with gestational diabetes will develop Type 2 diabetes within the next five years. The chance of a black woman developing diabetes in this setting is 50% higher than that of a white woman. Our ability to screen and intervene to possibly mitigate the occurrence of this great lifelong health burden is greatly limited with an abbreviated period of coverage."

In voicing support for the MOMMA Act, Keller noted it would permit states to expand coverage under Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children through the full post-partum period for women that he labeled "critical to ensuring access to care."

The act supports the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health, a national alliance of hospitals providers, state health departments and women's health organizations working to bring about standardized obstetric protocols nationally. The partnership, which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists helped found, seeks to ensure all hospitals adopt best practices and safety training to eliminate preventable pregnancy and child-birth related deaths and illnesses. The act also calls for technical assistance to bring about better reporting.

The act provides "a comprehensive set of policies to improve data collection, disseminate information on effective interventions and expand access to healthcare and social services for postpartum women," Keller said. "The legislation would also bolster federal efforts to support states in collecting, standardizing, and sharing maternal mortality and morbidity data."

"These are the kind of things we need to get passed," said House, 37, of Mattoon. "It's key. It's all about bringing awareness."

The act has the support of several organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Black Women's Health Imperative, both based in Washington, D.C., and Chicago-based the Ounce of Prevention Fund.

Among other participants at the hearings were state Sens. Cristina Castro and Jacqueline Collins and state Rep. Mary Flowers. U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove, also participated in the hearing.

Kelly voiced optimism on prospects for passage of the MOMMA Act.

"We have a lot of support from outside agencies," she said. "Moms are still dying. We need to do something about this."

Source