Doctors Worry New Mothers Aren't Pursuing Proper Post-Delivery Care

Pregnancy can take a lot out of a woman, and it can come with numerous complications. Some of those complications can have lasting effects on the mother’s health or even lead to death. Post-delivery care is as important as every other phase in pregnancy, but 40% of new mothers fail to make their post-delivery appointments. That's a staggering percentage.

Part of this could be medical costs, low awareness of their risks or even waning faith in our healthcare system. Maybe this lack of trust is justified since 3 times as many women in the U.S. die of pregnancy-related complications than in the U.K., and our healthcare system could be to blame.

So why are so many women failing to follow through?

Missing Follow-Ups

Between 20% and 40% of new mothers fail to make their post-delivery follow-up appointments. Part of the problem with follow-up care is many women aren’t informed of all the dangers they’re still in even after they give birth. They figure once they have their baby and go home, that's it; from that point on they focus on their baby's doctor appointments, ignoring their own bodies.

Waning faith in the U.S. medical system, as well as skyrocketing costs, likely keep some women from making much-needed appointments. Women on Medicaid, who account for about 45% of deliveries, are only covered for 60 days of post-delivery follow-up.

Young, otherwise healthy women may regard medical visits as an unnecessary expense, to their own detriment. About 15% of these women don’t even have primary care doctors.

Other Factors

Even women who pursue proper medical care might not be getting the post-delivery treatment they need. Each year, about 2,700 women in the U.S. die from pregnancy-related complications -- that’s an average of 17.25 deaths per 100,000 deliveries. Compare that to the U.K.’s maternal death rate of 6.87 per 100,000 deliveries. So where does this disparity come from?

The U.K. government assembled a task force in the early 2000s to identify and find solutions to their preventable maternal deaths, to great success. In 2006, California made a similar effort, cutting its maternal mortality rate down to 7.3 deaths per 100,000 deliveries. The rest of U.S. has yet to do the same, and far too many women are continuing to die needlessly for it.

Possible Complications

New mothers can develop eclampsia, a condition that leads to deadly high blood pressure, even months after giving birth. Those with gestational diabetes can be at higher risk for Type 2 diabetes, as well as cardiovascular disease. Some women develop life-threatening infections that are overlooked in the hospital.

Postpartum depression, which generally occurs between 2 weeks and 6 months after the baby is born, affects 15% to 85% of new mothers. Women with postpartum depression are about 3 times more likely to attempt suicide. Extreme cases can lead to mothers killing their infants.

The number of maternal deaths we continue to see each year is merely one symptom of a very broken healthcare system. Some women aren’t getting the care they need, of their own accord; but many are being failed by the very people they’re trusting with their lives. The medical field needs to instill trust back into the people on a number of fronts before we can expect to see any real solutions to this problem. We need to educate mothers on the importance of scheduling follow-up doctor appointments for themselves during the first few months after giving birth and we need to ensure every woman receives the quality of care she deserves. Too many lives are on the line for anything less.

~ Here’s to Your Health and Wellness