Statistics on the state of maternal health in the US

[PuppyFluffer]

I am 21 weeks pregnant with baby #3.

I had cause to see a cardiologist a few weeks ago for a little heart flutter.

He asked me who my OB was. I told him I am seeing a midwife. He asked me who she was associated with. I said she's independent. He looked concerned and expressed that he thought it was important that I have medical care. (Like a midwife isn't "medical care"!!!)

I told him I have a family practitioner who formerly was a midwife.

He went on to say that a woman of my age should have medical care. (I am 39.) And that if any issues arrose, that I should seek medical care. At which point I smiled at him and said "That's exactly why I am sitting here." I think he got it that he was preaching to the wrong party at that point. I mean, really, not seeking medical care would mean that I would just blow off that funny little thud with my heartbeat right?

Anyhow, he's young and I think he needs a little dose of facts. Do any of you have the maternal mortality stats for the US handy? I know we've not had any improvement in ranking in a very long time! I also know that we don't credit and track true maternal deaths properly. I saw Ina May Gaskin do a talk on this issue several years ago and I saw her quilt project. Truly gut wrenchingly sad! It made me cry!

I want to share some facts with him that I am sure he's not aware of.

[mwherbs]

so what is he suspecting? or is it just general policy that someone middle aged should be followed with typical screening stuff-- my family make it a policy to avoid medical care as much as possible unless there is a problem that a doctor can help-- and in our family we have pretty good longevity
on the heart flutter what was it?
something for pregnancy and heart/circulatory health- BERRIES- hawthorn is the typical heart one but all berries offer support to the connective tissue and are anti-oxidant --

[PuppyFluffer]

As for the heart issue, I went through a similar thing in 2005, though I was not pregnant then. My first contact with a cardio was in 2000 I think when I had a lymph node infection that was originally suspected as lymphoma. I had a high resting heart rate and I followed up with an echo and such. It seemed to generally resolve. In 2005, I had a funny flutter and had an echo and a 24 hour holder monitor. It didn't reveal anything odd and the flutter feeling went away.

This flutter has a bit of a different feeling, more like a hollow feeling in my chest then immediately followed by a thud type heartbeat. He noticced tachycardia again (109), the palpitation and a murmor, though he suspects the murmor is just the flow but he wants to check it out. With the holidays and such, it was about 10 days before I could get the echo and holter done. I just had them done last week and have not heard back from them yet. But, in that 10 day wait, the palpitation has pretty much vanished. My sense is that it's nothing but that I would be stupid for not following up and checking it out.

I told the cardio regarding his comments on me having "medical" care in pregnancy that, with his education and background, I fully expected him to recommend OB care but that from my experience and education, I have come to a different conclusion.

I just want to show him stats on the state of maternal care in the US and the superiority of outcomes in countries that are less medicalized. Our c-section rates are horrendous!!! I did some searching but didn't come up with definative statistics. If anyone has handy links, I'd appreciate it.

[mwherbs]

maternal death rate in the US is considered to be under-reported/not the same standards from state to state- nor do we have the same standards for reporting as other countries-- here are some links

http://www.who.int/whr/2005/en/
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http://www.who.int/reproductive-heal...000/index.html
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here is a link to an article-- it is pretty good
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Real+r.....-a0102791856
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another article--

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39642
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[onlyboys]

This is totally not what you're asking for, but please try NaturalCalm for your palpitations, if you've not tried it already. It fixed my "ventricular tachycardia" that the cardio recommended surgery for! :