The hidden dangers of being pregnant in America
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is In Conversation from Apple News. I'm Shamita Basu.
Why is America's maternal health care system failing families?
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.
Somebody asked me what my book was about. I said, it's about how America treats you when you're pregnant. And somebody said, like a child. And somebody else said, like an animal.
What common experiences do women face during pregnancy in the U.S.?
And Maggie said, like a child animal. And I sort of looked at everyone wondering what their stories were.
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.
America, whether it was through our uncaring, profit-driven medical system or through a system of laws that were suddenly unleashed in full force when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, has failed to see us as fully people, as fully human, who are in possession of our full faculties and instead as a means to an end or a vessel.
That failure, Irene says, is not just something people feel. It's reflected in the data.
Regardless of how you measure it, if you crunch the numbers in the most conservative way, this is the most dangerous country to be pregnant among our peer nations. And according to the CDC, 80% of maternal deaths are preventable.
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.
There are deep problems with our medical system, but there is something different about pregnancy. First of all, when you become pregnant, gendered expectations are placed on you to become a perfect mother, to live a blameless life, to be spotless, to follow whatever the rules of the given moment are, even though they shift, you know? And the other thing is that pregnancy is something that can be both deeply powerful and deeply dangerous. And it can bring up somebody's deepest emotional, religious, social, cultural, familial convictions in a way that going in and having a colonoscopy simply cannot do. And it has the possibility for joy. By the way, despite the fact that people are having fewer children...
According to the census, 80% of women today will give birth by the end of their reproductive lives. And pregnancy is also the most common reason that women are hospitalized in this country. So it's also the way in which many otherwise healthy people interact with the hospital system and with the medical system in an intensive way that they may not have had experience with before in research and surveys. When people who give birth are asked about what mattered to them, the biggest difference was not what kind of birth they had or where they were, but how they were treated and whether they were treated respectfully. And the experience of giving birth for many people is actually kind of... putting people into contact with the kind of dehumanization in the medical system that others may experience.
Perhaps if they're Medicaid patients, they're low income, they're queer, they live in a place that's underserved by medicine, they're Black, they're undocumented. Many people, and I count myself among these, who otherwise enjoy a lot of privileges in the system might suddenly be shocked and outraged to be treated like a child animal the moment you come into contact with the system as a pregnant person.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:04–0:08
2
Why is America's maternal health care system failing families?
0:08–0:47
3
What common experiences do women face during pregnancy in the U.S.?
0:47–5:38
4
How does the history of maternal health care impact current practices?
5:38–13:18
5
What statistics highlight the dangers of pregnancy in America?
13:18–16:50
6
What are the systemic issues contributing to maternal mortality?
16:50–24:28
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Apple News Today
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