SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Editor’s note: This report discusses mental health and mentions depression and suicide. If you or a loved one is experiencing mental health struggles, please call the national hotline 988 for help.
Missouri’s leading healthcare professionals identified mental health as one of the most common issues pregnant women deal with, but now the challenge is helping them.
In continuation of the state’s efforts to combat high maternal mortality, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services published a new report on pregnancy-associated deaths. This report has data from 2017 to 2021 and is the first to reflect the pandemic’s effect on maternal health in Missouri.
In the five-year period captured by the report, Missouri saw an average of 70 women die while pregnant or postpartum each year. The highest number of deaths recorded in one year was 85 in 2020. The national average maternal mortality rate is 22 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control, but Missouri’s is about ten higher.
Graph courtesy: Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
The top health concern for pregnant women, identified in the report, is heart disease, followed closely by mental health. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns were exacerbated by the pandemic, as captured in the report data.
Mental health issues can manifest in many different physical ways for pregnant and postpartum women. Unfortunately, some can result in suicide. Over the five year period reflected in the report, 14% of the deaths were suicide.
Dr. Jean Goodman with MU Health said all mental health issues are considered preventable if a person can receive care and treatment.
Mental health issues are widespread. Alison Williams is a registered nurse who now works with the Missouri Hospital Association and Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review, which put together the report.
“We see it as a failing, like there’s something ‘wrong’ with you that’s maybe different than a physical diagnosis,” Williams said. “But in reality… It can be really challenging, and it can create a lot of depression and anxiety that quite honestly spirals out of their control.”
Williams herself struggled with mental health during pregnancy.
“With both of my pregnancies, I dealt with anxiety and depression, and with my second, it was pretty severe,” Williams said. “It wasn’t seen as a critical thing that was assessed at the time.”
Wiliams said education and connection to resources are the keys to helping people with these struggles.
The report states that COVID-19 was the cause of death for two-thirds of the pregnancy-related deaths in 2021. Goodman said she lost more patients during the pandemic than she had in three decades.
“Unfortunately, COVID was a complete unknown to all of us, and we had no handle on how to best treat, and even with the best facilities and capabilities available, we still lost patients,” Goodman said. “Over a 30-year period, I’d only had one mom who had passed away during that period, and I lost several during the first six weeks of the crush of the pandemic.”
Over the past two fiscal years, Gov. Mike Parson and the Missouri Legislature have invested over $10 million toward addressing maternal health issues. While it will be years before data can reflect any possible progress, Goodman said the state is already seeing a return on that investment thanks to new programs in place at hospitals around Missouri.
“You can see now in the state that we have programs that have opened now already in a very short period of time,” Goodman said. “The Maternal Health Access Perinatal Program that’s being run through the DHSS. That provides access for a provider caring for any woman before, during, or after pregnancy to immediately be connected to someone with expertise in providing counseling.”
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