Why Are So Many Pregnant Mothers Dying in D.C.?

"Maternity Desert," a new documentary from The Atlantic, follows Amber Pierre, a 24yearold AfricanAmerican woman living in southeast D.C. Pierre is pregnant with her second child. After two previous miscarriages, she is navigating a highrisk pregnancy that, combined with her Medicaid coverage, requires she visit a hospital every two weeks to be seen by an ObGyn. Pierre lives in Anacostia River, the area of D.C. most affected by the closures. In these neighborhoods, the population is 93 percent black and 32 percent below the poverty line. Across the U.S., black mothers are three times more likely to die from pregnancyrelated complications than white mothers. In the nation’s capital, where the maternal mortality rate is already twice as high as the national average, two recent hospital closures have the potential to make this disparity much worse. Read more

Subscribe to The Atlantic on YouTube