Feb 03 2010
Death rate increasing… in California
I find this surprising, to say the least:
The mortality rate of Californian women who die from causes directly related to pregnancy has nearly tripled in the past decade, reports California Watch. The investigative reporting website interviewed the authors of a not-yet-public Department of Public Health study identifying the most significant spike in pregnancy-related deaths since the 1930s. Although the total number of deaths remains relatively small, the report affirms that it’s now more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia. Possible reasons behind the spike include an uptick in morbid obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, along with hemorrhaging from the growing numbers of C-sections. And the trend could be nationwide. An alert issued last week to hospitals by the Joint Commission, the leading health care accreditation and standards group in the country, warned: “Unfortunately, current trends and evidence suggest that maternal mortality rates may be increasing in the U.S.”
Whatever you do, don’t ask Michael Ignatieff to comment.
This sort of misrepresentation of statistics is one of my pet hates.
> the report affirms that it’s now more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia. Possible reasons behind the spike include an uptick in morbid obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, along with hemorrhaging from the growing numbers of C-sections.
If any of the reasons given are true, then it is not more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia, as it is not California that is the influencing factor. To say that it is more dangerous to give birth in California than Kuwait implies that one pregnant woman could increase her chances of having a safe delivery by relocating from California to Kuwait. If the reasons for her level of danger are her weight or her blood pressure or her diabetes or her choice of a C-section, then those factors will remain with her wherever she goes.
This is the same logic that leads to that oft-cited nonsense that green is the most dangerous colour of car. Cars are different colours. One of those colours has to be involved in more accidents than the others. But, unless you can show that it is the colour that causes the accident, cars in that colour are no more dangerous than the others.
What they should have said is “Californians are taking greater risks when giving birth than Kuwaitis or Bosnians.”