Shumita Basu

I'm Shamita Basu.

Today, why America's maternal health care is failing families.

A few years ago, journalist Irene Carmon was at a picnic for her child's preschool in New York City, watching her children and chatting with the other moms, when the conversation turned to her latest project, a book that she had just started researching.

One of the moms, Maggie, ended up becoming one of the main stories told in Irene's new book.

It's called Unbearable, Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America.

And it follows several families through their encounters with the health care system, navigating fertility challenges, pregnancy, loss and birth.

Each story is unique, but Irene says there is a common thread running through all of them.

That failure, Irene says, is not just something people feel.

It's reflected in the data.

I told Irene, and I'll tell you listening now, that I'm currently pregnant with my second child.

I've been thinking a lot about how my first go-around went and reflecting on why I've had so many similar conversations with women about how they felt they were treated by the medical establishment over the course of pregnancy and birth.

So I asked Irene, why is this the case?

That for so many people in America, we're still struggling to get maternal health care right.

I was really struck by that anecdote that you shared in the book.

We were with a couple of other New York moms, and it seemed immediately recognizable to the other mothers who'd had experiences with childbirth.

What you're describing, recognizable to me too, as someone who has had one child who's almost two and is now pregnant with my second and thinking a lot about childbirth and the experience the first time around and what felt really difficult about it, frankly.

Yeah.

The forces shaping modern pregnancy care in America first took root well over a century ago.

In her book, Irian highlights one of the key figures in this history, J. Marion Sims, a mid-19th century doctor from Alabama, a state that today has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.

Once Sims' experimental procedures were deemed safe enough to perform on white women, more and more of his colleagues saw the opportunity to build new businesses centered on their practices.