Maternal mortality in Texas

I recently attended a training focused on maternal health hosted by United Methodist Women and Church and Society.

Before the training, I did not know Texas, my home state, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the developed world. Maternal mortality rates nearly doubled in Texas between 2010-2014. While I was attending this event — educating myself on problems in Texas and our nation and learning what I can do as an individual — the Texas state Legislature was in session. Maternal mortality was absent from their agenda.

Texas has a task force studying maternal mortality, the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force. They, along with the Texas Department of State Health Services, produced a biennial report in 2016. The report contained some alarming details about the state of maternal health in Texas.

For example:

• Black women are disproportionately at risk of dying after giving birth.
• Mental health disorders and substance abuse are two of the top causes of death’s occurring within 42 days of giving birth.
• Women who live in southern and eastern Texas are more likely to die of hemorrhage or blood transfusion-related causes — or both.

With access to affordable, high-quality health care at risk, I worry that our problems in Texas, and throughout the country, are only going to get worse.

As a United Methodist deaconess, I am an action-driven social justice advocate. I believe that change starts with education.

Now that I have educated myself on this injustice that is robbing people of life and families of their mothers, I want to do all I can to decrease drastically the number of maternal related deaths.

I want to find a way to increase — not decrease — affordable access to health services during the year after delivery. I want people with mental health and substance abuse disorders to have affordable access to the help they need. I want to increase community and health care provider awareness so that together, we can make change happen. To start, I have become part of a United Methodist Maternal Health Texas Task Force. We are a group of women from across the state of Texas. We will be hosting an educational forum October 22, 2017, at First United Methodist Church of Arlington (co-hosted by Advocates for Social Justice, a group within FUMC Arlington). We will record the forum and distribute the recording throughout the state to help raise awareness. From this educational forum, we hope to form a database of members and allies to our team to help us accomplish our goal of decreasing maternal mortality in Texas by increasing federal funding.

Additionally, our task force hopes to create and submit a resolution to all five annual conferences in Texas, which will also educate and raise awareness.

While I believe this is a justice issue that needs the church’s support, it is also important for United Methodists to recognize that this work is biblically-based and supported by our Social Principles and Book of Resolutions. Our Social Principles state that “health care is a basic human right” and “we affirm the right of men and women to have access to comprehensive reproductive health/family planning information and services.”

I am thankful that I was invited to participate in the Maternal Health training event because it opened my eyes to a problem within our nation that I never knew existed. I am now prepared to be a better advocate for maternal health both in Texas and in our country. I hope by sharing this information, and including others in this conversation, we can reduce the number of maternal related deaths and make Texas and the United States a safer place for mothers and mother-to-be.