Tag: Featured

We are awaiting the anticipated release of data and recommendations from Colorado’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC) on pregnancy-associated and pregnancy-related deaths. However, from previously released reports and national trends, we have an idea of what the data will show.

We have only seen an increase in maternal mortality rates in the United States since the CDC first implemented the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System in 1986.

• From 7.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to
• 17.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2015 to
• 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021

These grim statistics are desperately headed in the wrong direction, especially for Black and Native American moms and birthing people.

Looking at 2022 data from the Colorado Hospital Association, Black moms are 53% more likely to experience severe maternal morbidity—such as heart failure, eclampsia, hysterectomy, and blood infection or need for blood transfusion—than their white counterparts which is only surpassed by Native American mothers who are twice as likely (98%) as their white counterparts. Alongside these disparities, In Colorado, 39.7% of counties are maternity care deserts. Maternity care deserts are counties in which access to maternity health care services is limited or absent, either through lack of services or barriers to a woman’s ability to access that care within counties.

And we would be remiss not to mention the Supreme Court Dodd Decision which changed the landscape of perinatal health and maternal/fetal medicine with long-lasting, and increasingly alarming national reverberations.

We do not intend to sit idly by with this data. Because these are not just “data.” These statistics represent the people who have influenced and nurtured us, our mothers and grandmothers and parents—humans. These numbers are not just an episode of care or a bundled payment, they represent someone’s body, someone’s emotions and experiences. There is a level of anonymity in talking about data that makes it seem like it isn’t personal, that it is a thing without an owner, without a cause, without an opportunity. But, it isn’t. We have heard from many voices that are the lived experience of some of this data.

The Colorado Perinatal Care Quality Collaborative began operating 47 years ago in recognition of the fact that quality improvement doesn’t just happen. It is a deliberate process of assessment, evidence gathering, intervention, review, and realignment…and repetition. It requires commitment, it requires funding, and it requires a growth mindset – aligned with incentives.

We acknowledge that health systems, hospitals, and clinics are one piece in supporting a change in the trajectory of maternal health and outcomes across Colorado. However, medical care is only part of a large, dynamic array of factors that influence pregnancy, birth, and the start of a new family. It is important that we consider all the complexity and the social and structural factors that contribute in large part to where we are today.  It will take strong leadership and partnership to realize our vision: that EVERY pregnant and postpartum person, infant, and their families in Colorado have access to and receive safe, equitable, high-quality care.