Nothing Protects Black Women From Dying in Pregnancy and… — ProPublica
▻https://www.propublica.org/article/nothing-protects-black-women-from-dying-in-pregnancy-and-childbirth
A black woman is 22% more likely to die from heart disease than a white woman, 71% more likely to perish from cervical cancer, but 300% more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes.
Travail impressionnant ! Cette histoire m’a bouleversée.
C’est en comparant avec ce genre d’analyse systémique qu’on ne peut que regretter l’absence de statistiques mêlant race classe et genre en France. Interdire de dresser 1 éventuel constat sur ce genre de conséquences du racisme est un gros problème.
The disproportionate toll on African Americans is the main reason the U.S. maternal mortality rate is so much higher than that of other affluent countries. Black expectant and new mothers in the U.S. die at about the same rate as women in countries such as Mexico and Uzbekistan, the World Health Organization estimates.
What’s more, even relatively well-off black women like Shalon Irving die or nearly die at higher rates than whites. Again, New York City offers a startling example: A 2016 analysis of five years of data found that black college-educated mothers who gave birth in local hospitals were more likely to suffer severe complications of pregnancy or childbirth than white women who never graduated from high school.
The fact that someone with Shalon’s social and economic advantages is at higher risk highlights how profound the inequities really are, said Raegan McDonald-Mosley, the chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who met her in graduate school at Johns Hopkins University and was one of her closest friends. “It tells you that you can’t educate your way out of this problem. You can’t health-care-access your way out of this problem. There’s something inherently wrong with the system that’s not valuing the lives of black women equally to white women.”
For much of American history, these types of disparities were largely blamed on blacks’ supposed innate susceptibility to illness — their “mass of imperfections,” as one doctor wrote in 1903 — and their own behavior. But now many social scientists and medical researchers agree, the problem isn’t race but racism.
One day in the opioid epidemic | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
▻http://www.post-gazette.com/news/overdosed/2016/12/26/One-day-in-the-opioid-epidemic/stories/201612260005
That’s what the region is facing.
10 newborns in withdrawal
Sometimes there are two, other times a dozen, but babies born opioid-dependent are “a constant issue” in the Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC maternity ward, according to Richard Beigi, the Oakland hospital’s chief medical officer.
On Dec. 15, there were eight such babies, and this year Magee has seen close to 500 pregnant women who were using opioid rehabilitation medicines like methadone or buprenorphine, or actively using painkillers or heroin, Dr. Beigi said. “That’s maybe six or seven percent” of pregnant patients, he said.
Often the dependent babies are irritable, sleep poorly and struggle to coordinate the sucking, swallowing and breathing required to feed. Magee has a corps of volunteer “cuddlers” that carry some of the load. “It’s not that the moms don’t care. It’s just that these babies have so much more needs,” said Dr. Beigi.
Le 15 décembre, journée ordinaire. La liste se poursuit : overdoses, autopsies, enterrement, poursuites,…
Daily chart: The weight of the world | The Economist
▻http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/01/daily-chart-3
WO-THIRDS of Americans are overweight, but they underestimate the scale of the problem. The average guess from Americans responding to an Ipsos MORI poll in December estimated the portly population at just 50%. Britain is not much different, where 62% of people are over the recommended healthy weight; most think the population is slimmer, guessing that only 44% are too heavy. France, Germany and other European countries are similarly mistaken. But the biggest gaps between perception and reality are in Middle Eastern countries, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia (see chart). In general, women make better guesses than men but in India and Saudi Arabia, the outliers, men are slightly more accurate.
Concerns that the tubby tally is increasing excessively have led to actions to tackle obesity, specifically in children. The World Health Organisation held the first meeting of the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity in 2014, recognising the link between obesity while young and non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and cardiovascular disease in adult life. The number of children aged 0-5 years-old who were overweight rose by a third worldwide between 1990-2013. This is forecast to soar by another 70% by 2025 if nothing is done. In England a comprehensive programme measuring children’s weight, launched in 2006, provides clear evidence of the problem there. Among children aged five in 2007, 9.6% were obese; by age 11 the proportion had jumped to 19.1%. In her annual report last month England’s chief medical officer focussed on the importance of perinatal diet and health of mothers as a key focus in tackling obesity from pre-birth through to adulthood.
