ProPublica and NPR’s investigation examined why the U.S. has the worst rate of maternal mortality in the developed world — topping 700 deaths a year from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes with another 65,000 mothers nearly dying.
Through the heartbreaking story of Lauren Bloomstein, a neonatal nurse that died soon after giving birth, reporters Nina Martin and Renee Montagne show how a lack of standardized policies, inadequate clinical skills and a health care system that focuses on babies but often ignores their mothers has led to this dramatic increase in deaths in the U.S. — 60 percent of which are preventable — at a time when other developed countries from England to South Korea have seen their numbers plummet.
Running alongside this investigation is a crowdsourcing effort that launched months prior to our first main report that has collected more than 3,000 stories from mothers who have nearly died during childbirth complications or family members who have experienced a mother dying during childbirth.
