One in five American women experiences medical abuse during pregnancy or childbirth, according to a new health officials study Tuesday, highlighting the crisis in postnatal care for pregnant women in the United States.
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Some of the most commonly reported abuses include: being rejected or ignored after asking for help, being yelled at or verbally abused, invasion of physical privacy, threats not to receive treatment, or coercion to receive treatment, that you don’t want.
In this study, published by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the main federal health agency in the United States, around 2,400 women aged 18 and over were asked about the pregnancy of their first child.
It shows that Black women were the most likely victims of abuse (30 percent), closely followed by Hispanic women (29 percent), compared to 18 percent for white women.
“As a Black doctor, mother and wife, it is demoralizing to hear the prevalence of this abuse,” CDC staffer Wanda Barfield said in a statement. “We know that racism and discrimination can lead to delays in treatment and sometimes tragic deaths that could have been avoided.”
The maternal mortality rate in the United States has been rising for years and is now among the highest among industrialized countries. Maternal mortality is the death of women during pregnancy, childbirth or shortly thereafter.
Between 2018 and 2021 in the United States, that rate increased by 17.4 deaths per 100,000 births to 32.9 deaths.
Health officials say the vast majority of these deaths are preventable.
According to the study published Tuesday, around 40% of black women said they had experienced discrimination during their pregnancy or childbirth, particularly because of their skin color but also their age or weight.
In addition, women without health insurance or public insurance reported more abuse than women with private health insurance.