In “Dangerous Deliveries,” The Texas Tribune investigates why women in the state are often at a disadvantage when it comes to accessing prenatal care, postpartum care and health insurance. The Tribune spent six months reporting on this project, interviewing dozens of people, including women’s health advocates, doctors and a woman who survived a stroke after giving birth, to learn more about why the state’s maternal mortality rate is increasing at a faster rate than most.
A state task force released a report last summer showing that between 2011 and 2012, 189 Texas mothers had died less than a year after their pregnancies ended. Most of those deaths were attributed to heart disease, drug overdoses or high blood pressure. In addition to examining these numbers, the Tribune also looked at the state’s changes to women’s health programs.
Join Texas Tribune reporter Marissa Evans on Friday, Jan. 19, at 10:30 a.m. CST, for a live Reddit chat with Syreeta Lazarus, a Houston mother of two who experienced complications during childbirth. Lazarus was lucky; though she experienced an episode of postpartum pre-eclampsia, where a recently pregnant woman’s blood pressure rises rapidly, she was released after a two-day hospital stay. While her children are healthy, black mothers in Texas like her are twice as likely to die after a pregnancy-related hospital stay than any other group of women.
To join the live discussion, you’ll need a Reddit account (sign up here), or you can submit a question ahead of time by tweeting #AskTrib or posting a comment below.
Source: Texas Tribune Blue News
