Maternal Mortality in America: Causes, Consequences, and the Fight for Change

Maternal mortality is a serious public health crisis in the United States, and as time progresses, the rates continue to rise despite the increased medical technology. The crisis disproportionately affects non-Hispanic black women as they are undergoing maternal death at a higher rate than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. This thesis is going to dive into the root causes that lead to maternal mortality from medical complications like hemorrhages, emblisom disease, cardiomyopathy, and more. This research is also going to touch on the socioeconomic causes that lead to maternal mortality, like the barriers to accessing pre and postnatal care. Additionally, this paper is going to touch on ways that individuals are attempting to solve or reduce the rate of maternal mortality as a whole, specifically by highlighting community organizations and addressing healthcare initiatives that are being taken. It is crucial to analyze medical and social factors when assessing a health crisis as serious as maternal mortality as they both contribute to the prevalence of this phenomenon. This thesis will capture the urgent need for solutions, whether it be access to increased healthcare training, implementation of more policy reforms, or expansion of the amount of maternal support throughout pregnancy.