9 ms·

US has the highest rate of maternal deaths among rich nations. Norway has zero

108 points by hilux 2y ago

oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare, not be sentenced to prison for having a miscarriage, and not told they must be dying of sepsis before they can receive healthcare. In a Where To Invade Next? (2015)-style of policy prescriptions, the US should copy baby boxes, use policies that work, and measure the results of experiments with creative solutions as long as they work rather than putting the military-industrial complex and profits of big pharma and megahospitals before lives and the standards of living of regular people to not go bankrupt.
- HideousKojima 2y ago
  The US already has baby boxes at pretty much every fire station
  - Mordisquitos 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure that the commenter was referring to baby boxes as in "box of supplies to be able to take care of a baby" [0] and not as in "box to abandon a baby if you cannot take care of it" [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch
    - Thlom 2y ago
      I know they have this in Finland, but I suspect it's more as tradition than need. The other Nordic countries does not have anything like that. In Norway there's a diaper brand that gives out boxes to new mothers, but it's more like a fun thing than something that is needed. What works is a proper health care system with a predefined care path for pregnancies including regular checkups, access to courses and educational material about pregnancy and child birth, low bar for paid sick leave for pregnant women and paid maternity leave mandated by law.
      - Mordisquitos 2y ago
        Yes, without much knowledge on the subject, I do intuitively agree with you. I don't think baby boxes per se can make that much of a difference — they're more like the "icing on the cake" of a solid social support policy to help expectant and new mothers.
      - CraigJPerry 2y ago
        We have them in Scotland, I found it genuinely useful. Contents: https://www.parentclub.scot/baby-box https://www.parentclub.scot/baby-box A couple of colleagues in New York had their first kids around the same time, swapping stories is always pretty eye opening.
    - croes 2y ago
      Less need for US baby boxes when you have abortions possibilties like in Norway. Life is most precious in the US until you are born.
    - adamomada 2y ago
      Since you dug up those links from Wikipedia, it should be noted that baby hatch is first in the list on baby box, indicating it’s the more common usage. But also maybe the term baby box is too ambiguous to be used at all, if it means both of those things.
- tyoma 2y ago
  > First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare This is already true, pregnant women qualify for Medicaid in every state. Medicaid pays for ~50% of all births.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    MedicAid is absolute trash. It barely covers anything, few doctors accept it, and it isn't even close to proper healthcare.
    - refurb 2y ago
      This is false. Medicaid coverage is better than even European healthcare systems. It will cover rare disease drugs that aren’t paid for in the EU (it has to by law). Plus the OOP expenses are basically zero. While true not all doctor accept new Medicaid patients, you can find care.
  - herbst 2y ago
    A birth all in all is surely way above 10k dollars. So people are literally expected to pay 5k+ to have a child? If that's not stressful enough for many poorer people I don't know either
    - hiddencost 2y ago
      50% of births, not 50% of the cost of all births
      - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
        If it's an emergency of some sort, it's probably 100% covered. The thing though is that MedicAid is run similarly to Medicare where private insurers get involved but provide really shitty plans with terrible formularies and very limited choices for providers. Also, there's widespread healthcare provider bias, stigma, and discrimination against MedicAid patients. Also: Username checks out.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare, not be sentenced to prison for having a miscarriage, In your opinion, sure, but American voters disagree, which is why it's like this. American voters chose the Supreme Court that made this recent change.
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago
    The majority of the supreme court was appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Indeed. American voters choose maternal mortality for the same reasons and in the same way that they choose gun and motor vehicle fatalities.
- hilux 2y ago
  I know a MAGA who got pregnant right after moving to Idaho(!) while keeping her remote-work job in California.
tyoma 2y ago
Kind of relevant: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-many-of-our-facts-about-society https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-many-of-our-facts-about-so... > In 2021, Joseph et al. published a paper in Obstetrics & Gynecology demonstrating that the entire recorded increase in maternal mortality since 2003 was due to a change in the way data was gathered. In 2003, U.S. states began to include pregnancy checkboxes on death certificates. This led to a whole lot more women who died while pregnant being identified as such. The apparent steady increase in maternal mortality was due to the fact that states adopted this new checkbox at different times: > In fact, when the authors looked at the common causes of death from pregnancy, they found that these had all declined since 2000, implying that U.S. maternal mortality has actually been falling. Meanwhile, a CDC report in 2020 had found the same thing as Joseph et al. (2021) — maternal mortality rose only in states that added the checkbox to death certificates.
- RheingoldRiver 2y ago
  Additional info here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/31/united-states-maternal-mortality-crisis-statistics-health/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/31/united-states-maternal-...
- gorbachev 2y ago
  That may be relevant to something, but not to why the difference is so drastic between Norway and US. It is indicative of the US healthcare system, however, that up until 2003 it wasn't even known, statistically, that women were actually dieing of childbirth.
  - vasco 2y ago
    NVSS has reported monthly updates on this since the 60s, it's wrong to say it wasn't known statistically I think. Maternal mortality review committees have existed since the 1930s also which provide extra data. Maternal mortality is one of the most important vital metrics to track for any country so it indeed would be surprising not to have more data.
  - tyoma 2y ago
    It is very relevant. The US definition of maternal death is very expansive. The expanded definition counts any reason a woman who was recently pregnant and dies. The prototypical example is murder by a spouse. While tragic and extremely important to collect for policy reasons, it is not what “maternal death rate” typically measures.
louwrentius 2y ago
In the USA, the main issue is that a lot of people are poor and can’t afford healthcare. And that’s really on them. They have to really do their best, stop being so lazy and just stop being so poor. It’s the land of equal opportunity, a level playing field and if you can’t make it, you’re not working hard enough. They should really take personal responsibility seriously. If you just felt for a split second any doubt about me being serious or not that should mean something.
- was_a_dev 2y ago
  My split second of doubt came from not being American, and past experience of hearing Americas seriously make those points
  - user_7832 2y ago
    On a similar note - it is literally impossible for one to pull themselves up by their bootstraps as it is a part of the very thing you're standing on
    - ragebol 2y ago
      Gotta have bootstraps first as well
- bogeholm 2y ago
  Wild. I don’t have enough HN points to downvote, sorry
  - lifty 2y ago
    It's sarcasm without the sarcasm tag.
- stavros 2y ago
  This is exactly why. Yes, this comment is in jest, but something like it is the culture in the US, from way back when it really was an unexplored continent where you could get rich just by doing anything. This mindset has persisted to varying degrees, and it's why Americans are so opposed to a social safety net. After all, the only way for someone to be poor in the US is to deserve it.
wtcactus 2y ago
Obesity rates in the USA are 42% while in Norway they are 14%. Not only that increases the death rates exponentially, but it also diverts money away from other healthcare areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity...
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Obesity in America is an undeclared national emergency. POTUS should invoke the Defense Production Act to nationalize the production of generic tirzepatide at a cost of $50/month for bulk compounded injectables. Compensate Lilly $10 billion and let that be that because national welfare is more important than profits.
  - fileeditview 2y ago
    The idea that a drug is the answer to an overly obese population seems absolutely bonkers to me.
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      The healthier answer simply isn't feasible, unfortunately: it means bulldozing the suburbs, confiscating most cars and handing out bicycles in exchange, and building new, walkable cities and forcing Americans to live in them. Also needed would be strict regulations on food quality, and banning some ingredients. The drug may be a band-aid solution, but if it actually works for making people lose weight, it's better than telling them to eat better and get more exercise and then being shocked when they don't.
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        Your first paragraph sounds amazing.
        berkes 2y ago
gddgb 2y ago
[dead]
anthk 2y ago
If the US spent more on healthcare, it would save billions in the further decades because the illness' rate would plummet down.
- tyoma 2y ago
  How much should they spend?
- blooalien 2y ago
  > "If the US spent more on healthcare, it would save billions in the further decades because the illness' rate would plummet down." Not to mention the billions generated by healthy workers...
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  It needs to spend smarter, not more. It's already spending way more per capita then any other nation. It just doesn't have a lot to show for it in terms of key statistics like average age, child mortality, or indeed maternal deaths. Throwing more money at the problem will just ensure more money gets misspent.
frithsun 2y ago
Regardless of how you feel about diversity or who's fault all the differences in groups are, it's disingenuous to compare the least diverse country in the world to the most diverse like this. Wealthy white people in America surely have great maternal mortality rates, too.
- lm28469 2y ago
  Diversity has nothing to do with it. It's all about wealth equality and access to healthcare.
  - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
    Where does wealth and healthcare come from? The natural state of the world is no wealth and no healthcare. Someone has to build civilization, humans have to work hard to support it, and every future generation has to be committed to maintaining it. Diversity is antithetical to all of this.
    - lm28469 2y ago
      That's not a diversity issue, that's a "people not playing the game" issue, leeches can have any skin color or country of origin. I know white trash that are more of a burden to society than some of my immigrant friends (what HN call "expats" because they somehow think they're not migrants)
      - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
        Yes, this is a diversity issue. If you want people to play the game you can't replace them with hostile outsiders and call them "white trash". Thanks for illustrating my point.
        lm28469 2y ago
        There are hostile outsiders of course but the extreme vast majority of people play the game. Do you really think the US (aka #1 economy in the world aka #1 power in the world) has the same life expectancy as Sri Lanka because """diversity""" ? There are a dozen of things that have more impacts. Like half of the US being obese, or 15%+ have diabetes, &c. (which are both factors in maternal death btw). Time to wake up and take a good hard look in the mirror
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
Interesting timing as one of those freakonomics-wannabee blogs only yesterday tried to discredit the idea that the US had a maternity problem with a weirdly political attack. Apparently some statistical change in 2003 somehow caused a much higher death rate of mothers in the decades before it even happened and simultaneously caused a disproportionate amount of black mothers to die. You have to be really careful with time-travelling, genocidal statistical errors but apart from that there's nothing we can do to prevent the 80% of these deaths that are preventable, says the only developed country where this happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40596223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40596223
londons_explore 2y ago
> zero maternal deaths: Norway. Smallish population, lowish birth rates mean the sample is small? Perhaps they strongly advise abortions in the risky cases? Perhaps they record maternal deaths differently when there are other factors (ie. a mother who dies of a cancer during childbirth).
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  Aside from being about 1/80th the size of the US, and far less obese, their "scale" of obesity is far lower. I had a super-super morbidly obese teacher in college who took up an entire table, and had students do anything for her that required movement. This is relatively common in the US. Once you're at the weight a routine trip to the doctor could have you leaving in a body bag. It's incredibly misleading, and frankly a miracle our health care system can even keep most of these people alive as long as they do, let alone through pregnancy, which is effectively a surgery. A Fatal Case of Super-super Obesity (BMI >80) in a Patient with a Necrotic Soft Tissue Infection https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5995720/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5995720/
  - hilux 2y ago
    > frankly a miracle our health care system can even keep most of these people alive as long as they do Show some respect when you're talking about the most profitable (for big-Med, big-Food, big-Pharma) segment of society!
Beijinger 2y ago
Yes, and that is a super-bad early indicator. Based on: https://archive.org/details/finalfallessayon00todd/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/finalfallessayon00todd/mode/2up Trouble ahead.
tu7001 2y ago
As a complementary, would be nice to have the same data for the richest part of the US population.
atoav 2y ago
The US just deserves better. To meet it feels all of this hinges on that zero-sum mentality of "if I help the other guy that means I have it worse", when in reality helping others will also improve the society as a whole. I mean maybe there are people who find appeal in a society of armed, rugged individualists under constant existential stress where even those that "have made it" are at constant risk of crossing paths with a desperate peer at the verge of making a bad decision — but to be honest to me that sounds rather dystopian. It is nice to be part of a society that is stable and where people care for each other and the value of that reaches far beyond what the bean counters would quantify in measurable terms — but that doesn't mean there are no measurable terms Q.e.d.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > but to be honest to me that sounds rather dystopian. It sounds that way because it's a dystopian description written in crayon. It's not real. The US has loads of charity happening; it gives the most in aid; it makes the most businesses (which increase the size of the pie, and are win-win, and not zero sum mentality - other than the people who complain about billionaires); it has by far the most resident migrants of any country[0]; it's just really silly to characterise the US like this. The biggest line item in the 2024 federal budget[1] is healthcare, at $1.53tn. Second is social security, at $1.45tn. Overseas it spends a fortune too. Just recently it's spending $61bn more[2], making its own citizens poorer, on Ukraine defence and humanitarian aid. [0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/iom-global-migration-report-international-migrants-2020/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/iom-global-migration-... [1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946 [2] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/04/us-aid-package-ukraine-will-help-better-strategy-urgently-needed https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/04/us-aid-package-ukraine-...
  - Capricorn2481 2y ago
    Making the most businesses is not a net positive. Lots of businesses monetize horrible things. It's pretty off topic from maternal deaths, am I supposed to be comforted that there's another landlord or AI startup?
  - 2y ago
thethirdone 2y ago
I rather strongly doubt the "Norway has zero" statement. It does not directly reference any study nor does any other article stating the same. I don't doubt that it is lower or even rounds to 0 per 100,000, but actually 0 is almost certainly wrong. In 2021 [0], the deaths per 100,000 in Norway was 1.7 which is ~80 maternal deaths. I find it hard to believe that Norway happened to go from 80 to 0 in two years even including a generous amount of luck. 0: graph at the bottom of https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/1ea5684a-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/1ea5684a-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/1ea5684a-en/index.html?i...
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  It's per 100,000 pregnancies, not 100,000 population. In any given year most of the population is not pregnant. The total hits "zero" because it's a small country with a low fertility rate.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  There are like 50 000 births per year in Norway. If I am using the binominal distribution correctly the chance of a 0 death year is 37%.

108 points by hilux 2y ago

[dead]

First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare, not be sentenced to prison for having a miscarriage, and not told they must be dying of sepsis before they can receive healthcare. In a Where To Invade Next? (2015)-style of policy prescriptions, the US should copy baby boxes, use policies that work, and measure the results of experiments with creative solutions as long as they work rather than putting the military-industrial complex and profits of big pharma and megahospitals before lives and the standards of living of regular people to not go bankrupt.

HideousKojima 2y ago
The US already has baby boxes at pretty much every fire station
- Mordisquitos 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure that the commenter was referring to baby boxes as in "box of supplies to be able to take care of a baby" [0] and not as in "box to abandon a baby if you cannot take care of it" [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_package [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch
  - Thlom 2y ago
    I know they have this in Finland, but I suspect it's more as tradition than need. The other Nordic countries does not have anything like that. In Norway there's a diaper brand that gives out boxes to new mothers, but it's more like a fun thing than something that is needed. What works is a proper health care system with a predefined care path for pregnancies including regular checkups, access to courses and educational material about pregnancy and child birth, low bar for paid sick leave for pregnant women and paid maternity leave mandated by law.
    - Mordisquitos 2y ago
      Yes, without much knowledge on the subject, I do intuitively agree with you. I don't think baby boxes per se can make that much of a difference — they're more like the "icing on the cake" of a solid social support policy to help expectant and new mothers.
    - CraigJPerry 2y ago
      We have them in Scotland, I found it genuinely useful. Contents: https://www.parentclub.scot/baby-box https://www.parentclub.scot/baby-box A couple of colleagues in New York had their first kids around the same time, swapping stories is always pretty eye opening.
  - croes 2y ago
    Less need for US baby boxes when you have abortions possibilties like in Norway. Life is most precious in the US until you are born.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    Since you dug up those links from Wikipedia, it should be noted that baby hatch is first in the list on baby box, indicating it’s the more common usage. But also maybe the term baby box is too ambiguous to be used at all, if it means both of those things.
tyoma 2y ago
> First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare This is already true, pregnant women qualify for Medicaid in every state. Medicaid pays for ~50% of all births.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  MedicAid is absolute trash. It barely covers anything, few doctors accept it, and it isn't even close to proper healthcare.
  - refurb 2y ago
    This is false. Medicaid coverage is better than even European healthcare systems. It will cover rare disease drugs that aren’t paid for in the EU (it has to by law). Plus the OOP expenses are basically zero. While true not all doctor accept new Medicaid patients, you can find care.
- herbst 2y ago
  A birth all in all is surely way above 10k dollars. So people are literally expected to pay 5k+ to have a child? If that's not stressful enough for many poorer people I don't know either
  - hiddencost 2y ago
    50% of births, not 50% of the cost of all births
    - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
      If it's an emergency of some sort, it's probably 100% covered. The thing though is that MedicAid is run similarly to Medicare where private insurers get involved but provide really shitty plans with terrible formularies and very limited choices for providers. Also, there's widespread healthcare provider bias, stigma, and discrimination against MedicAid patients. Also: Username checks out.
shiroiushi 2y ago
>First, mothers-to-be in the US need single-payer healthcare, not be sentenced to prison for having a miscarriage, In your opinion, sure, but American voters disagree, which is why it's like this. American voters chose the Supreme Court that made this recent change.
- inferiorhuman 2y ago
  The majority of the supreme court was appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Indeed. American voters choose maternal mortality for the same reasons and in the same way that they choose gun and motor vehicle fatalities.
hilux 2y ago
I know a MAGA who got pregnant right after moving to Idaho(!) while keeping her remote-work job in California.

tyoma 2y ago

Kind of relevant: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-many-of-our-facts-about-society https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-many-of-our-facts-about-so... > In 2021, Joseph et al. published a paper in Obstetrics & Gynecology demonstrating that the entire recorded increase in maternal mortality since 2003 was due to a change in the way data was gathered. In 2003, U.S. states began to include pregnancy checkboxes on death certificates. This led to a whole lot more women who died while pregnant being identified as such. The apparent steady increase in maternal mortality was due to the fact that states adopted this new checkbox at different times: > In fact, when the authors looked at the common causes of death from pregnancy, they found that these had all declined since 2000, implying that U.S. maternal mortality has actually been falling. Meanwhile, a CDC report in 2020 had found the same thing as Joseph et al. (2021) — maternal mortality rose only in states that added the checkbox to death certificates.

RheingoldRiver 2y ago
Additional info here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/31/united-states-maternal-mortality-crisis-statistics-health/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/31/united-states-maternal-...
gorbachev 2y ago
That may be relevant to something, but not to why the difference is so drastic between Norway and US. It is indicative of the US healthcare system, however, that up until 2003 it wasn't even known, statistically, that women were actually dieing of childbirth.
- vasco 2y ago
  NVSS has reported monthly updates on this since the 60s, it's wrong to say it wasn't known statistically I think. Maternal mortality review committees have existed since the 1930s also which provide extra data. Maternal mortality is one of the most important vital metrics to track for any country so it indeed would be surprising not to have more data.
- tyoma 2y ago
  It is very relevant. The US definition of maternal death is very expansive. The expanded definition counts any reason a woman who was recently pregnant and dies. The prototypical example is murder by a spouse. While tragic and extremely important to collect for policy reasons, it is not what “maternal death rate” typically measures.

louwrentius 2y ago

In the USA, the main issue is that a lot of people are poor and can’t afford healthcare. And that’s really on them. They have to really do their best, stop being so lazy and just stop being so poor. It’s the land of equal opportunity, a level playing field and if you can’t make it, you’re not working hard enough. They should really take personal responsibility seriously. If you just felt for a split second any doubt about me being serious or not that should mean something.

was_a_dev 2y ago
My split second of doubt came from not being American, and past experience of hearing Americas seriously make those points
- user_7832 2y ago
  On a similar note - it is literally impossible for one to pull themselves up by their bootstraps as it is a part of the very thing you're standing on
  - ragebol 2y ago
    Gotta have bootstraps first as well
bogeholm 2y ago
Wild. I don’t have enough HN points to downvote, sorry
- lifty 2y ago
  It's sarcasm without the sarcasm tag.
stavros 2y ago
This is exactly why. Yes, this comment is in jest, but something like it is the culture in the US, from way back when it really was an unexplored continent where you could get rich just by doing anything. This mindset has persisted to varying degrees, and it's why Americans are so opposed to a social safety net. After all, the only way for someone to be poor in the US is to deserve it.

wtcactus 2y ago

Obesity rates in the USA are 42% while in Norway they are 14%. Not only that increases the death rates exponentially, but it also diverts money away from other healthcare areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity...

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
Obesity in America is an undeclared national emergency. POTUS should invoke the Defense Production Act to nationalize the production of generic tirzepatide at a cost of $50/month for bulk compounded injectables. Compensate Lilly $10 billion and let that be that because national welfare is more important than profits.
- fileeditview 2y ago
  The idea that a drug is the answer to an overly obese population seems absolutely bonkers to me.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    The healthier answer simply isn't feasible, unfortunately: it means bulldozing the suburbs, confiscating most cars and handing out bicycles in exchange, and building new, walkable cities and forcing Americans to live in them. Also needed would be strict regulations on food quality, and banning some ingredients. The drug may be a band-aid solution, but if it actually works for making people lose weight, it's better than telling them to eat better and get more exercise and then being shocked when they don't.
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      Your first paragraph sounds amazing.
      - berkes 2y ago

gddgb 2y ago

[dead]

anthk 2y ago

If the US spent more on healthcare, it would save billions in the further decades because the illness' rate would plummet down.

tyoma 2y ago
How much should they spend?
blooalien 2y ago
> "If the US spent more on healthcare, it would save billions in the further decades because the illness' rate would plummet down." Not to mention the billions generated by healthy workers...
jillesvangurp 2y ago
It needs to spend smarter, not more. It's already spending way more per capita then any other nation. It just doesn't have a lot to show for it in terms of key statistics like average age, child mortality, or indeed maternal deaths. Throwing more money at the problem will just ensure more money gets misspent.

frithsun 2y ago

Regardless of how you feel about diversity or who's fault all the differences in groups are, it's disingenuous to compare the least diverse country in the world to the most diverse like this. Wealthy white people in America surely have great maternal mortality rates, too.

lm28469 2y ago
Diversity has nothing to do with it. It's all about wealth equality and access to healthcare.
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  Where does wealth and healthcare come from? The natural state of the world is no wealth and no healthcare. Someone has to build civilization, humans have to work hard to support it, and every future generation has to be committed to maintaining it. Diversity is antithetical to all of this.
  - lm28469 2y ago
    That's not a diversity issue, that's a "people not playing the game" issue, leeches can have any skin color or country of origin. I know white trash that are more of a burden to society than some of my immigrant friends (what HN call "expats" because they somehow think they're not migrants)
    - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
      Yes, this is a diversity issue. If you want people to play the game you can't replace them with hostile outsiders and call them "white trash". Thanks for illustrating my point.
      - lm28469 2y ago
        There are hostile outsiders of course but the extreme vast majority of people play the game. Do you really think the US (aka #1 economy in the world aka #1 power in the world) has the same life expectancy as Sri Lanka because """diversity""" ? There are a dozen of things that have more impacts. Like half of the US being obese, or 15%+ have diabetes, &c. (which are both factors in maternal death btw). Time to wake up and take a good hard look in the mirror

ZeroGravitas 2y ago

Interesting timing as one of those freakonomics-wannabee blogs only yesterday tried to discredit the idea that the US had a maternity problem with a weirdly political attack. Apparently some statistical change in 2003 somehow caused a much higher death rate of mothers in the decades before it even happened and simultaneously caused a disproportionate amount of black mothers to die. You have to be really careful with time-travelling, genocidal statistical errors but apart from that there's nothing we can do to prevent the 80% of these deaths that are preventable, says the only developed country where this happens. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40596223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40596223

londons_explore 2y ago

> zero maternal deaths: Norway. Smallish population, lowish birth rates mean the sample is small? Perhaps they strongly advise abortions in the risky cases? Perhaps they record maternal deaths differently when there are other factors (ie. a mother who dies of a cancer during childbirth).

vsuperpower2020 2y ago
Aside from being about 1/80th the size of the US, and far less obese, their "scale" of obesity is far lower. I had a super-super morbidly obese teacher in college who took up an entire table, and had students do anything for her that required movement. This is relatively common in the US. Once you're at the weight a routine trip to the doctor could have you leaving in a body bag. It's incredibly misleading, and frankly a miracle our health care system can even keep most of these people alive as long as they do, let alone through pregnancy, which is effectively a surgery. A Fatal Case of Super-super Obesity (BMI >80) in a Patient with a Necrotic Soft Tissue Infection https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5995720/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5995720/
- hilux 2y ago
  > frankly a miracle our health care system can even keep most of these people alive as long as they do Show some respect when you're talking about the most profitable (for big-Med, big-Food, big-Pharma) segment of society!

Beijinger 2y ago

Yes, and that is a super-bad early indicator. Based on: https://archive.org/details/finalfallessayon00todd/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/finalfallessayon00todd/mode/2up Trouble ahead.

tu7001 2y ago

As a complementary, would be nice to have the same data for the richest part of the US population.

atoav 2y ago

The US just deserves better. To meet it feels all of this hinges on that zero-sum mentality of "if I help the other guy that means I have it worse", when in reality helping others will also improve the society as a whole. I mean maybe there are people who find appeal in a society of armed, rugged individualists under constant existential stress where even those that "have made it" are at constant risk of crossing paths with a desperate peer at the verge of making a bad decision — but to be honest to me that sounds rather dystopian. It is nice to be part of a society that is stable and where people care for each other and the value of that reaches far beyond what the bean counters would quantify in measurable terms — but that doesn't mean there are no measurable terms Q.e.d.

robertlagrant 2y ago
> but to be honest to me that sounds rather dystopian. It sounds that way because it's a dystopian description written in crayon. It's not real. The US has loads of charity happening; it gives the most in aid; it makes the most businesses (which increase the size of the pie, and are win-win, and not zero sum mentality - other than the people who complain about billionaires); it has by far the most resident migrants of any country[0]; it's just really silly to characterise the US like this. The biggest line item in the 2024 federal budget[1] is healthcare, at $1.53tn. Second is social security, at $1.45tn. Overseas it spends a fortune too. Just recently it's spending $61bn more[2], making its own citizens poorer, on Ukraine defence and humanitarian aid. [0] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/iom-global-migration-report-international-migrants-2020/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/01/iom-global-migration-... [1] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946 [2] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/04/us-aid-package-ukraine-will-help-better-strategy-urgently-needed https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/04/us-aid-package-ukraine-...
- Capricorn2481 2y ago
  Making the most businesses is not a net positive. Lots of businesses monetize horrible things. It's pretty off topic from maternal deaths, am I supposed to be comforted that there's another landlord or AI startup?
- 2y ago

thethirdone 2y ago

I rather strongly doubt the "Norway has zero" statement. It does not directly reference any study nor does any other article stating the same. I don't doubt that it is lower or even rounds to 0 per 100,000, but actually 0 is almost certainly wrong. In 2021 [0], the deaths per 100,000 in Norway was 1.7 which is ~80 maternal deaths. I find it hard to believe that Norway happened to go from 80 to 0 in two years even including a generous amount of luck. 0: graph at the bottom of https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/1ea5684a-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/1ea5684a-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/1ea5684a-en/index.html?i...

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
It's per 100,000 pregnancies, not 100,000 population. In any given year most of the population is not pregnant. The total hits "zero" because it's a small country with a low fertility rate.
rightbyte 2y ago
There are like 50 000 births per year in Norway. If I am using the binominal distribution correctly the chance of a 0 death year is 37%.