Obstetrician Neel Shah explains how a trip to India for the 2017 Human Rights in Childbirth meeting led him to a humbling realization: When it comes to childbirth, both India and the United States fall short in surprisingly similar ways. In both countries, women often receive either too little or too much care…read more
A Different Approach to Improving Childbirth
Posted onBy Neel Shah, Associate Faculty at the Ariadne Labs for Health Systems Innovation
When it comes to childbirth, the United States of America seems to combine the problems of the third world and the first world into a perfect storm. On one hand, 50% of U.S. counties lack a qualified childbirth provider. No midwife. No obstetrician. No family medicine doctor that delivers babies. In broad swaths of the country, women routinely drive several hours to get to a hospital with a maternity ward. Currently, childbirth is the most common reason for hospitalization in the United States, and cesarean delivery is now the most common major surgery performed on Americans (one out of every three births). At the same time, nearly half of cesareans performed in the United States appear to be unnecessary with significant consequences for the safety, affordability and experience of care… read more