Amnesty International reports that women are 5 times more likely to die in childbirth in the USA than in Greece, 4 times more likely to die in the USA than in Germany, and 3 times more likely to die in the USA than in Spain.The crisis in maternal health is not addressed by the current health care reform proposal. The organization is calling on President Obama to establish an Office of Maternal Health because:
"In the U.S., we spend more than any country on health care, yet American women are at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than in 40 other countries," says Nan Strauss, the report's co-author, who spent two years investigating the issue of maternal mortality worldwide. "We thought that was scandalous."
Amnesty International’s report Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA reports that 1 out of every 3 pregnant women in the U.S. experience pregnancy-related complications, while a shocking 1 out of every 4 women in the U.S. do not receive adequate prenatal care.