US: Native women face high maternal mortality rates. Can Biden’s spending bill help?
Lily – November 29, 2021
On a recent afternoon, Nicolle Gonzales attended a birth on Navajo Nation inside a hogan, a traditional Navajo shelter, where the woman in labor squatted over a sheepskin next to a roaring fire. When the labor became difficult, Gonzales burned cedar and sage with two doulas she had helped train from the local community. The woman’s mother, sisters, nieces and nephews, also in attendance, had prepared an altar with ceremonial items in advance of the birth, Gonzales said. This work is crucial, she believes, because American Indian and Alaska Native women are more than twice as likely to die because of pregnancy-related causes than White women. Maternal mortality, or deaths related to pregnancy, decreased by almost 40 percent around the world between 2000 and 2017. But in the United States, these deaths have climbed steadily upward.
https://www.thelily.com/native-women-face-high-maternal-mortality-rates-can-bidens-spending-bill-help/