Title
Authorizing the Committee on Public Health and Human Services to hold hearings examining proposed solutions to racial disparities in the maternal mortality rate in the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Maternal mortality, also known as maternal death, is defined by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the death of a pregnant person due to complications related to pregnancy, underlying conditions worsened by the pregnancy, or management of these conditions, occurring during pregnancy, childbirth, or within one year postpartum; and
WHEREAS, To the extent that maternal mortality rates are used by global health researchers as important proxy markers of the health of a country and the quality of its health infrastructure, these trends demand, and have received, the attention of individuals and families, healthcare providers and practitioners, public health officials, and leaders at every level of government; and
WHEREAS, Despite spending more on healthcare than any other nation on Earth, the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among highly-resourced countries; and
WHEREAS, Troublingly, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. has been steadily increasing from a low of 7.2 deaths per 100,000 births in 1987, the first year after the implementation of the Pregnancy-Related Mortality Surveillance System, to 32.9 in 2021, representing a more than fourfold increase in deaths, with 80% of them estimated to have been preventable; and
WHEREAS, Therefore the United States has the unfortunate distinction of being one of very few nations where a pregnant person today is several times more likely to experience maternal death or near-death than the person who gave birth to them; and
WHEREAS, Black women in the United States are persistently several times more likely than White women to die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth, and in Philadelphia, where an average of 20 pregnancy-associated deaths per year occurred betwee...
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