'Notes from the trail' update
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On days I’m home in South Dakota, I sit down for my morning bowl of Wheaties and flip through our local papers. This week, as I ate my bowl of cereal, I came across a well-researched and well-written article. The title was: “Effort begins to reduce risk of death of South Dakota mothers during childbirth.” It was written by local reporter Nick Lowrey from South Dakota News Watch and placed in many papers throughout the state.
It struck me for two reasons – one, it’s shocking because even as one of the most developed nations in the world, our mothers are dying during childbirth at the highest rate, and two, because the very next day I would be attending a congressional committee hearing on the same topic.
It’s important I go prepared to these hearings and the Education and Labor Committee does a fantastic job sending memos to ensure everyone is up to speed. The information is always helpful, but it’s not typically South Dakota specific. That’s where Nick’s article came in – because of his reporting I walked into that hearing knowing 60% of maternal deaths are preventable, that maternal “pregnancy-associated” deaths in South Dakota averaged 7.2 per year between 2010 and 2018, and nine South Dakota mothers died within a year of giving birth in 2018 alone.