Why Giving Birth Is Safer in Britain Than in the USSeptember 6, 2017 |
This story was co-published with NPR.
At 11:58 p.m. this past June 25, Helen Taylor gave birth to her first baby, a boy, at West Suffolk Hospital in the east of England. At 11:59 p.m., with 15 seconds to spare before midnight, his sister was born. The obstetrician and her team were pleased; the cesarean section was going smoothly, fulfilling Helen’s wish that her twins share a birthday.
But 40 minutes later, Helen had lost over a third of her blood.
Enraptured by new motherhood, she barely noticed when the obstetrician’s head appeared around the surgical drape. “We need to give you a drug to help stop the bleeding, is that OK?” Helen nodded. Ten minutes passed before the question came again. Then again. The fourth time, Helen realized something was seriously wrong.
Image: By Smuconlaw – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37116015
Tags: bioethics, child, childbirth, morbidity, mortality, mothers, safety
