Video: How More Midwives May Mean Healthier Mothers

The United States has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the industrialized world. 

In this collaboration with Vox and as part of a larger project, Lost Mothers, ProPublica explores the role of the midwife as a very conceivable factor in assuring the health, safety and well-being of mothers during childbirth, and their babies. 

In other industrialized countries, where the presence of a midwife is prominent in most deliveries, maternal death rates have witnessed a decline. However, in the U.S., these rates have risen, and they can be related to a medical system and a mindset that has yet to fully embrace midwives:

Midwives in the U.S. participate in less than 10 percent of births. But in Sweden, Denmark and France, they lead around three-quarters of deliveries. In Great Britain, they deliver half of all babies, including all three of Kate Middleton’s. So if the midwifery model works for royal babies, why not our own?

Much of the reluctance in the United States can be attributed to the stigma created by the professionalization of medicine led by white, male doctors against midwives, who were historically and mainly women of color. The resulting "culture war" has come at the cost of lives and communities. 

If we want progress, if we want women to come first, if we want to prevent deaths that are preventable, then collaboration, education and options are required for a woman to have a higher chance of survival, comprehensive information to make decisions about her body and access to opportunities for greater maternal health.