LONDON (The Guardian) – The cost of living crisis could exacerbate Britain’s already woeful rates of women dying during and after pregnancy, the World Health Organization warned, with health inequalities becoming starker as more expectant mothers are plunged into poverty.
The UK is falling behind most comparable European countries, as 9.6 mothers die within six weeks of childbirth for every 100,000 babies, with suicide becoming the leading cause of death.
Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, a WHO director and medical doctor specializing in maternal health, said there was a “visible association” between the likelihood of a woman dying in the weeks before and after childbirth and high levels of deprivation.
She said the WHO was “very concerned” the situation in the UK could be worsened by the cost of living crisis.
“Clearly it’s not just that everyone is experiencing the same levels of maternal mortality but there are disparities and we see that those living in the most deprived areas continue to have the highest maternal mortality rates, so I think that is a very strong and key message,” she said.
“It’s not only [about] focusing on maternal care itself and ensuring you have a sufficient and competent workforce [to give] quality of care – this is all very important – but there seems to be something about the underlying risk factors that a woman has before becoming pregnant, and her wider socioeconomic and perhaps ethnic background, which are also impacting the outcomes,” she added.
Azzopardi-Muscat added that “other countries with similar levels of economic development are faring better in terms of their maternal mortality”, noting that there is “room for improvement” in the UK, with the WHO set to publish data shedding further light on this in early 2023.
She blamed the rising rate on poor health among pregnant women, including high levels of diabetes and obesity, and “inadequate” use of antenatal care services, which are failing to reach women from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and those living in deprived areas.
She added that the UK must invest more in antenatal and perinatal mental health support during a “very delicate and fragile period in a woman’s life” to bring down the “very, very alarming” suicide rate for new mothers.
A recent international analysis also showed the UK was an outlier in terms of maternal health, with mothers in the UK three times more likely to die around the time of pregnancy compared with those in Norway.