American mothers are under attack

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In the US, a battle rages to control not only a woman's reproductive rights but also her rights as a mother

Anywhere else in the Western world, mothers are given a degree of respect and support evident from their treatment in the hospital, the workplace and the home.

Not so in the United States. New mothers are treated more as profit centers for hospitals and burdens for employers than as the linchpin of a healthy society. Instead the U.S. has become fertile ground for those who seek to control not only a woman’s reproductive rights but also her rights as a mother, from the moment of conception until her child becomes an adult.

An industry that fails women

The problem starts with the astronomical cost of maternity care in the U.S. As reported last year by The New York Times, an in-hospital birth can cost as much as $45,000 without insurance. Mothers don’t, however, get their money’s worth. Despite spending more than $98 billion annually on birth, the U.S. has relatively high maternal mortality rates, ranking 50th worldwide.

Interventionism is a primary culprit. In the U.S., 53 percent of women giving birth receive Pitocin, a medication that augments their contractions, and more than 63 percent receive an epidural for pain relief. The C-section rate is the second highest in the world, about 34 percent. More interventions lead to more complications and higher rates of maternal and neonatal mortality. This drives up the average cost of a birth, which can deter low-income women, particularly women of color, from seeking the necessary prenatal treatment for a healthy pregnancy.

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/1/the-attack-on-motherhood.html

[Thinkingabout]

2. This is in the USA where GOP likes the idea of forced births but does not bludge on

Making sure,the babies are going to bet the best care before birth, now this makes sense, huh GOP.