Alarming Number of Women Are Dying in Mexico From Childbirth Kristen V Brown - Bloomberg
go to original June 24, 2022

Why Do Women Still Die in Childbirth? (The Guardian)

The pandemic has had a lot of ripple effects on health-care systems around the world. In Mexico, one of those was that the number of women dying from childbirth increased by more than 60%.

Mexico’s Maternal Mortality Crisis

Women die during or shortly after giving birth way more often than you might expect, even here in the US. In New Jersey, for example, about 26 women die for every 100,000 births — one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation. Those rates are linked to a lack of access to care like routine check-ins before and after birth that can catch problems before they become life-threatening.

In 2021, as Mexico battled the height of the pandemic, the maternal mortality rate was about three times as bad as it is in New Jersey. Before COVID, things had actually been improving. But since the pandemic began, more than 2,000 women have died in Mexico from childbirth.

It was found was that problems were already brewing before March 2020. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had decided to reimagine the country’s health-care system to make it free for everyone. But that plan ran into snags, and it wasn’t running smoothly by the time the pandemic overwhelmed Mexican hospitals.

Then Mexico made a decision that would have negative effects on pretty much anyone suffering from an ailment other than Covid: It converted some hospitals into COVID-only hospitals.

Read the rest at Bloomberg

Related: Mexico's COVID Response Led to the Deaths of 2,240 New Mothers (Bloomberg)

Related: Mayor Reaffirms His Commitment to the Health of Vallarta’s Residents (NoticiasPV)