I am a nurse at Baltimore VA Medical Center. My aim in writing this letter is to inform you about the need to improve maternal health. Maternal health is essential because childbirth and pregnancy-related complications are among the leading causes of disabilities and deaths among US women (Ali et al., 2019) . The death of a child or mother can threaten the whole community’s survival. In case the newborn survives, the mother’s death may endanger their development, together with that of other remaining young children. Also, women who die from pregnancy-related issues are mostly in their prime years. In most cases, they are responsible for the well-being and health of their families.
Mother plays an essential role in our community. Many women in the community shoulder their families’ burden of household duties and helping their families by working outside their homes. However, despite all their efforts, maternal mortality is a clear indication of the neglect in our society to acknowledge their efforts. There is no exact figure that shows the exact number of women who succumb to childbirth and pregnancy-related challenges. Cases of misclassification and underreporting of maternal deaths are common. Most of those who die are from remote areas and living in poor conditions. Although hospitals have records concerning maternal deaths, most of them are unreliable because they are not complete. As a result, we should strive to ensure their safety, especially in helping the community.
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Maternal health plays a crucial role in our public health in many ways. Mothers are a vital part of every community, and maternal mortality is one of the challenges that face this proportion of a population (Azugbene, 2017) . Therefore, understanding of maternal health is fundamental, especially in making efforts to improve health for pregnant women in the community. Through it, we can identify some of the leading causes of maternal mortality like unsafe abortion, severe bleeding, and eclampsia, among others. By identifying these issues, we will be able to come up with practical solutions to reduce the menace. Also, our facilities will have an opportunity to make the right recommendations for minimizing maternal deaths. Therefore, we should take it as a severe issue to help mothers tackle challenges threatening their lives.
We should assess our level of health care as far as maternal health is concerned. According to the WHO, dubbed as the World Health Organization, there are many indicators of maternal health. One of them is the maternal mortality ratio (Ali et al., 2019) . This is one of the key performance indicators, especially regarding efforts to improve mother's safety and health, before childbirth, during, and after this period. Another indicator of maternal health is the postnatal care for babies and mothers within two days of delivering. Antibiotic treatment for suspected pneumonia may also be used as an indicator of maternal health. All these, among others, are used to show the country’s level of preparedness to improve maternal health.
Lack of knowledge regarding danger signs related to pregnancy is one of the main challenges in maternal health. Most mothers have succumbed to maternal deaths because they were unable to identify dangers that culminated to the severity of their conditions. Also, there are those mothers who fear going healthcare checks. Most are afraid of their privacy. As a result, they wait until the time for delivering only to experience complications.
References
Ali, R. K., Hussein, Y. A., & Alezzi, J. (2019). Preeclampsia: Materanl Risk Factors & Perinatal Outcomes. Pediatric Practice and Research . https://doi.org/10.21765/pprjournal.467553
Azugbene, E. (2017). Maternal Health Literacy and Maternal and Child Health Outcomes: A Review of the Literature. Annals of Global Health , 83 (1), 94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aogh.2017.03.208
