By Edward Henderson, California Black Media
The California Surgeon General’s Office has launched a new questionnaire that they believe will help reduce the state’s maternal mortality rate by 50% by December 2026 as part of its Strong Start and Beyond movement.
The Preconception Medical Assessment or PreMA is comprised of eight yes or no questions that can help potential mothers understand how their current health status and history affect a future pregnancy. The Office plans to provide digital links and physical PDFs of the questionnaire and distribute them among women living in communities designated as “high risk.”
“We know that over 85% of maternal deaths in California can be prevented,” said California Surgeon General Dr. Diana Ramos during an Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications (OCPSC) digital press conference.
“Moms don’t have to die. Our sisters, our mothers, the wives, they don’t have to die. We can save their lives by simply alerting people to the fact that their current health could impact the pregnancy and postpartum.”
Question topics include heart health, high blood pressure, diabetes, respiratory issues, drug use and history of surgery.
Once a woman answers the questions, there are general recommendations for care at the bottom of the questionnaire based on the number of ‘yes’ responses they give. Also, at the bottom of the quiz, there are links to resources where people can get information on medical care, housing and other programs providing aid to new mothers.
Additionally, 62% of maternal deaths occur after the baby has been delivered. PreMA can also be affective to monitor health conditions between pregnancies as well to help lower this number.
“There were so many times when I cared for patients and I had to tell them, ‘you’re going to be needing more medical care, or you’re a higher risk pregnancy because of the chronic medical condition that was present before you became pregnant.’ And inevitably, the words that always came out of the people that I cared for was, ‘I wish I would have known. I wish I would have known that there was something that I could have done to improve the outlook for my pregnancy.’”
Black women in the U. S. are more than twice as likely as white women to die due to complications related to maternity and the birthing process, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
For Black women in California, the risk of death due to pregnancy complications is four to six times higher than any other ethnic group, according to data from the California Health Care Foundation.
Licensed Doula Ithiopia McKinney is an example of one of those women. McKinney, said at the time of her pregnancy she did not qualify for insurance. According to McKinney, she had to utilize the services of an emergency room. During a visit she found out that there was a bleeding from her placenta caused by high blood pressure.
“If it was something that was caught beforehand, I would have been able to take the necessary steps to fix it with medical care,” said McKinney. “And I would not have had anxiety during my pregnancy. They were even talking about it might be possible that I had to stay in the hospital. I was put on bed rest, but I really couldn’t be on bed rest because I was an immigrant trying to work.”
A Black immigrant, McKinney’s struggles are common for women of color in the United States.
Black women in California experience pregnancy-related maternal mortality rates that are three to four times higher than other women.
“A tool like PreMA would give us the information that we would need before we even think about getting pregnant. Every time you empower a woman, and in terms of their reproductive health, it leads to better outcomes. And so that is one of the reasons why me personally, we started the mobile health planning. No woman would not have that prenatal care that I, unfortunately, had.”
