Dr. Laxmi Mehta is a cardiologist who has worked on several guidelines and scientific statements on maternal health from the American Heart Association.
She said it’s difficult to tease out the reasons for Black women’s higher risks, based on the information the researchers had. It’s not clear, for example, what kind of prenatal care the women had, or how factors like depression and anxiety might have fit in.
Mehta agreed that for women with pregnancy complications such as high blood pressure or diabetes, follow-up care after childbirth — what doctors sometimes call the “fourth trimester” — is critical.
Depending on the kind of complication, some women may need to see a cardiologist or endocrinologist for their care, while others can see their primary care doctor, Mehta said.
“The important part is, the follow-up needs to happen,” she said.
And doctors may need to be especially careful that Black patients do not fall through the cracks.
“We need to perk up our ears and our vigilance with these women, because they’re at greater risk,” Mehta said.
The study did turn up a positive trend: Over time, Black women’s rates of death in the hospital fell — from 38 per 100,000 hospitalizations in 2007, to 22 per 100,000 in 2017.
But their rates of most cardiovascular complications actually ticked upward and remained higher relative to white women, as well as Hispanic and Asian women.
Government figures show that in 2018, the U.S. maternal death rate stood at roughly 17 deaths per 100,000 births — more than double the rates in most other wealthy countries.
Sourced by HealthDay News