Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What percentage of women in the U.S. die from complications during birth?
In response to the high maternal mortality ratio, in 2013 the Department of State to created the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force. According to Amnesty International's 2010 report, five medical conditions collectively account for 74% of maternal deaths in the US.
This indicator is directly linked to a process of giving birth by pregnant woman, and most of maternal mortality are likely to happen at this stage. Most maternal deaths result from haemorrhage, complications of unsafe abortion, pregnancy-induced hypertension, sepsis and obstructed labour. However, these proportions of causes for maternal deaths are likely to differ from one country to another. According to official estimates, more than 20 women die of pregnancy and childbirth-related complications every day in Tanzania. Ensuring that mothers have access to a skilled attendant during labour can dramatically reduce the risk of death for the mother and newborn child. In the 2010 Tanzania DHS, about 51% of deliveries were assisted by skilled personnel. While it was 41% in 1999 Tanzania DHS. Potentially the current figure national-wide will be more than 51 per cent. Shortage of health providers, among others, are limiting factors to be delivered by skilled provider. The ratio of doctors to patients in Tanzania is 1:25,000 and the ratio of nurses to patients is 1:23,000. While the ratio in the United States is 1:300. President Jakaya Kikwete on May 2014 appealed to health workers in Tanzania to ensure that lives of women and children are not at risk during delivery. In Tanzania, two thirds of women give birth in their own homes, because there are very few health facilities within reach that can provide life-saving emergency services.
In the first half of the 20th Century, women in Cuba had achieved a status comparable with that of other Latin American countries, such as Argentina and Chile. In 1933, during the 100-day government of Ramón Grau, Cuban women received the vote. In 1934 the percentages of Cuban women working outside the home, attending school, and practicing birth control surpassed the corresponding percentages in nearly every other Latin American country.
The research center's study also found evidence of a correlation between economic difficulties and fertility decline by race and ethnicity. Hispanics (particularly affected by the recession) have experienced the largest fertility decline, particularly compared to Caucasians (who have less economic hardship and a smaller decline in fertility). In 2008–2009 the birth rate declined 5.9 percent for Hispanic women, 2.4 percent for African American women and 1.6 percent for white women. The relatively large birth rate declines among Hispanics mirror their relatively large economic declines, in terms of jobs and wealth. According to the statistics using the data from National Centre for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau, from 2007 to 2008, the employment rate among Hispanics declined by 1.6 percentage points, compared with declines of 0.7 points for whites. The unemployment rate shows a similar pattern—unemployment among Hispanics increased 2.0 percentage points from 2007 to 2008, while for whites the increase was 0.9 percentage points. A recent report from the Pew Hispanic Center revealed that Hispanics have also been the biggest losers in terms of wealth since the beginning of the recession, with Hispanic households losing 66% of their median wealth from 2005 to 2009. In comparison, black households lost 53% of their median wealth and white households lost only 16%. In facts, Hispanics, who have been hit the hardest in terms of employment and wealth, have also experienced the largest fertility declines since the onset of the recession because the birth rate declines of Hispanic women is the highest while comparing to the White women. Since, the unemployment rate has been increasing, the birth rate decline has been decreasing.[59]
Obesity has also been shown to increase the prevalence of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Babies born to obese women are almost three times as likely to die within one month of birth and almost twice as likely to be stillborn than babies born to women of normal weight.
Painkillers are thought to complicate deliveries and women are discouraged by ob-gyns from taking them during childbirth. Therefore, Japanese births tend to be without pain medication. Furthermore, there is a more positive image of a women capable of natural birth.
Without pain medication, labor displays the woman's strength and responsibility. Some believe that not experiencing pain during birth hinders bonding between mother and baby.
One option is to focus on education about overpopulation, family planning, and birth control methods, and to make birth-control devices like male and female condoms, contraceptive pills and intrauterine devices easily available. Worldwide, nearly 40% of pregnancies are unintended (some 80 million unintended pregnancies each year). An estimated 350 million women in the poorest countries of the world either did not want their last child, do not want another child or want to space their pregnancies, but they lack access to information, affordable means and services to determine the size and spacing of their families. In the United States, in 2001, almost half of pregnancies were unintended. In the developing world, some 514,000 women die annually of complications from pregnancy and abortion, with 86% of these deaths occurring in the sub-Saharan Africa region and South Asia. Additionally, 8 million infants die, many because of malnutrition or preventable diseases, especially from lack of access to clean drinking water.
According to a 2004 WHO publication, sociodemographic factors such as age, access to resources and income level are significant indicators of maternal outcomes. Young mothers face higher risks of complications and death during pregnancy than older mothers, especially adolescents aged 15 years or younger. Adolescents have higher risks for postpartum hemorrhage, puerperal endometritis, operative vaginal delivery, episiotomy, low birth weight, preterm delivery, and small-for-gestational-age infants, all of which can lead to maternal death. The leading cause of death for girls at the age of 15 in developing countries is complication through pregnancy and childbirth. They have more pregnancies, on average, than women in developed countries and it has been shown that 1 in 180 fifteen year old girls in developing countries who become pregnant will die due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth. This is compared to women in developed countries, where the likelihood is 1 in 4900 live births. However, in the United States, as many women of older age continue to have children, trends have seen the maternal mortality rate to rise in some states, especially among women over 40 years old.
A report released in April 2008 by the Foundation for Child Development, which studied the period from 1994 through 2006, found mixed results for the health of children in the U.S. Mortality rates for children ages 1 through 4 dropped by a third, and the percentage of children with elevated blood lead levels dropped by 84%. The percentage of mothers who smoked during pregnancy also declined. On the other hand, both obesity and the percentage of low-birth weight babies increased. The authors note that the increase in babies born with low birth weights can be attributed to women delaying childbearing and the increased use of fertility drugs.
One of the international Sustainable Development Goals developed by United Nations is to improve maternal health by a targeted 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. Most models of maternal health encompass family planning, preconception, prenatal, and postnatal care. All care after childbirth recovery is typically excluded, which includes pre-menopause and aging into old age. During childbirth, women typically die from severe bleeding, infections, high blood pressure during pregnancy, delivery complications, or an unsafe abortion. Other reasons can be regional such as complications related to diseases such as malaria and AIDS during pregnancy. The younger the women is when she gives birth, the more at risk her and her baby is for complications and possibly mortality.
This indicator is directly linked to a process of giving birth by pregnant woman, and most of maternal mortality are likely to happen at this stage. Most maternal deaths result from haemorrhage, complications of unsafe abortion, pregnancy-induced hypertension, sepsis and obstructed labour. However, these proportions of causes for maternal deaths are likely to differ from one country to another. According to official estimates, more than 20 women die of pregnancy and childbirth-related complications every day in Tanzania. Ensuring that mothers have access to a skilled attendant during labour can dramatically reduce the risk of death for the mother and newborn child. In the 2010 Tanzania DHS, about 51% of deliveries were assisted by skilled personnel. While it was 41% in 1999 Tanzania DHS. Potentially the current figure national-wide will be more than 51 per cent. Shortage of health providers, among others, are limiting factors to be delivered by skilled provider. The ratio of doctors to patients in Tanzania is 1:25,000 and the ratio of nurses to patients is 1:23,000. While the ratio in the United States is 1:300. President Jakaya Kikwete on May 2014 appealed to health workers in Tanzania to ensure that lives of women and children are not at risk during delivery. In Tanzania, two thirds of women give birth in their own homes, because there are very few health facilities within reach that can provide life-saving emergency services.
The third season reveals that any woman who conceives on the island dies before the baby is born. Specifically, the pregnancy goes well until about midway through the second trimester, where complications arise. The mother's body rejects the fetus as a viral infection, resulting in both the mother and child's death. Juliet states that in her research, no one made it to their third trimester. Animals such as the wild boars do not die during pregnancy. Women who went through their second trimester off the island are able to give birth without incident (Rousseau, Claire). The Others have enlisted the help of Juliet, a fertility researcher, to help find out why this happens, but she never finds an answer. Several women among the Others volunteer to get pregnant for Juliet's research, all with uniformly fatal results.
However, in the episode "LaFleur" Amy gives birth to a healthy baby Ethan and there was no mention of her being off the island during conception or pregnancy. It is revealed that during Dharma time women would leave the island to give birth, though Amy is clearly in the third trimester of her pregnancy.
The rising maternal death rate in the U.S. is of concern. In 1990 the U.S. ranked 12th of the 14 developed countries that were analyzed. However, since that time the rates of every country have steadily continued to improve while the U.S. rate has spiked dramatically. While every other developed nation of the 14 analyzed in 1990 shows a 2017 death rate of less than 10 deaths per every 100,000 live births, the U.S. rate has risen to 26.4. By comparison, the United Kingdom ranks second highest at 9.2 and Finland is the safest at 3.8. Furthermore, for every one of the 700 to 900 U.S. woman who die each year during pregnancy or childbirth, 70 experience significant complications such as hemorrhage and organ failure, totaling more than 1 percent of all births.
Low birth weight makes up 60–80% of the infant mortality rate in developing countries. "The New England Journal of Medicine" stated that "The lowest mortality rates occur among infants weighing . For infants born weighing or less, the mortality rate rapidly increases with decreasing weight, and most of the infants weighing or less die. As compared with normal-birth-weight infants, those with low weight at birth are almost 40 times more likely to die in the neonatal period; for infants with very low weight at birth the relative risk of neonatal death is almost 200 times greater." Infant mortality due to low birth weight is usually a direct cause stemming from other medical complications such as preterm birth, poor maternal nutritional status, lack of prenatal care, maternal sickness during pregnancy, and an unhygienic home environments. Along with birth weight, period of gestation makes up the two most important predictors of an infant's chances of survival and their overall health.
Research has consistently shown that, as far as birth complications are concerned, the care provider’s perception that a baby is big is more harmful than an actual big baby by itself. In a 2008 study, researchers compared what happened to women who were suspected of having a big baby to what happened to women who were not suspected of having a big baby—but who ended up having one. In the end, women who were suspected of having a big baby (and actually had one) had a triple in the induction rate, more than triple the C-section rate, and a quadrupling of the maternal complication rate, compared to women who were not suspected of having a big baby but who had one anyway.
Modern scientific inquiry into home birth takes place in the fields of anthropology, epistemology, ethnology, history, jurisprudence, medicine, midwifery, public health,sociology, and women's studies. Research of home birth is complicated by ancient and modern biases about the nature of women and birth that are manifested in our language and ideas that we transmit about women, women's bodies, and what women do. It has been demonstrated that reports of research of physiological phenomena, such as conception, transmit deep seated biased cultural notions of women and women's bodies. Most last century and 21st century researchers of home birth view the phenomenon through two broad perspectives that are closely tied to the ideas and perceptions of birth itself - social and biomedical. 
The belief in this culture is that men control family and political power and women are meant to follow their orders. A woman's role is to give her husband children and these women face pressure from their husband's family members to bare as many children as possible. Pregnancies from child marriages also result in more birth complications than marriages with older women. Many women in South Sudan lack the resources and medical care that they need during their pregnancies, so if there are complications the women may not be saved. As a result, South Sudan has one of the highest maternal death rates following and during pregnancy with a ratio of 789 deaths per 100,000 live births. Because of the lack of contraception use and the fact that women are expected to have as many children as possible, this number does not waver much. A major complication faced by women in South Sudan is Obstetric Fistula. Approximately 5,000 women in South Sudan have obstetric fistula every year. Fistula is most common in areas where there are not medical resources. This often results in the loss of the child as well as the rejection of the woman by her husband and others.
Every year, an estimated 342,900 women die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries. Worldwide, for every 100,000 live births, about 251 women die. In some industrialized countries such as the U.S, this is 13 deaths for every 100,000 live babies born with American women having a lifetime risk of 1 in 2,100 of dying from childbirth related complications. However, in some countries, such as Afghanistan up to 1,600 women die for every 100,000 live births and women have a 1 in 11 lifetime risk of maternal death.
Another factor preventing women from seeking emergency obstetric care among Ugandan women is the cultural desire for Ugandan women to 'protect their own integrity.' A common birthing practice is for women to give birth completely alone and the individual is the one who decides if outside help is needed. It has also been found that women feel that they have the most power and control during the birthing process, which is something they often lack in other aspects of their lives. Women are considered to be strong and independent if they can handle the birthing process by themselves. These beliefs often lead to very dangerous circumstances as the women often delay assistance, which sometimes costs their life or the life of the baby. Oftentimes one of these main issues is obstructed labor. When women realize labor is not progressing normally they first seek female friends or traditional birth attendants. This can result in a further delay in seeking medical attention from someone who is trained to handle such complications.
A particularly consistent finding regarding the health of the Latino population is that Latina women, despite their many social and economic disadvantages (e.g., lower socioeconomic status, lower levels of education, less use of prenatal care, less access to health insurance), give birth to significantly fewer low birth weight infants and lose fewer babies to any and all causes during infancy in comparison to non-Hispanic white women. This phenomenon is part of what is known as the “Latina paradox” or “Epidemiologic paradox”, which is a mortality advantage within the Latino population. This cultural advantage begins to fade when Latina women acculturate into mainstream American culture; thus, more acculturated Latina women experience a higher infant mortality rate and give birth to more low-birth weight infants. Exploring the factors that bring about the Latina paradox at the individual and community levels may help identify new opportunities for policy interventions to optimize prenatal outcomes in U.S born Latinas and other non-Hispanic white ethnic groups.
There is no definitive explanation for what leads to a mortality advantage. Behavioral factors such as drug-use, alcohol consumption, and tobacco use may serve as a contribution to the paradox, since Latina women smoke less, consume less alcohol, and use drugs less when pregnant compared to their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Cultural factors may be relevant to the Latina paradox since foreign-born Latina women have lower rates of low-birth weight babies than U.S. born Latina women and non-Hispanic white women. Alternatively, community factors such as the acculturation of the community and the values of the community may also contribute to the paradox.
The 2010 maternal mortality rate per 100,000 births for Guinea Bissau was 1000. This compares with 804.3 in 2008 and 966 in 1990. The under-5 mortality rate, per 1,000 births, was 195 and the neonatal mortality as a percentage of under-5 mortality was 24. The number of midwives per 1,000 live births was 3; one out of eighteen pregnant women die as a result of pregnancy. According to a 2013 UNICEF report, 50% of women in Guinea Bissau had undergone female genital mutilation. In 2010, Guinea Bissau had the seventh-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.
Increase in midwifery education has led to advances in impoverished countries. In Somalia, 1 in 14 women die while giving birth. Senior reproductive and maternal health adviser at UNFPA, Achu Lordfred claims, “the severe shortage of skilled health personnel with obstetric and midwifery skills means the most have their babies delivered by traditional birth attendants. But, when complications arise, these women either die or develop debilitating conditions, such as obstetric fistula, or lose their babies.” UNFPA is striving to change these odds by opening seven midwifery schools and training 125 midwives so far.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration pregnancy categories, levothyroxine has been assigned Pregnancy Category A. Given that no increased risk of congenital abnormalities have been demonstrated in pregnant women taking levothyroxine, therapy should be continued during pregnancy. Furthermore, therapy should be immediately administered to women diagnosed with hypothyroidism during pregnancy, as hypothyroidism is associated with a higher rate of complications, such as spontaneous abortion, preeclampsia, and premature birth.
In the Western world, maternal deaths due to placental abruption are rare. The fetal prognosis is worse than the maternal prognosis; approximately 12% of fetuses affected by placental abruption die. 77% of fetuses that die from placental abruption die before birth; the remainder die due to complications of preterm birth.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal health as the health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum period. According to estimates from UNICEF, Uganda’s maternal mortality ratio, the annual number of deaths of women from pregnancy-related causes per 100,000 live births, stands at 435 after allowing for adjustments. Women die as a result of complications during and following pregnancy and childbirth and the major complications include severe bleeding, infections, unsafe abortion and obstructed labor.