Native Americans Are Dying From Pregnancy. They Want a Voice to Stop the Trend.

Native Americans are dying from pregnancy. They want a say in stopping the trend.

Native organizations, the CDC, and some states are working to boost tribal participation in state maternal mortality review committees to better track and address pregnancy-related deaths in their communities.

Native Americans Are Dying From Pregnancy. They Want a Voice To Stop the Trend.

Just hours after Rhonda Swaney left a prenatal appointment for her first pregnancy, she felt severe pain in her stomach and started vomiting. Then 25 years old and six months pregnant, she drove herself to the emergency room in Ronan, Montana, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, where an ambulance transferred her to a larger hospital 60 miles away in Missoula. Once she arrived, the staff couldn’t detect her baby’s heartbeat. Swaney began to blee…