Preventing maternal deaths: Q&A with childbirth safety expert

Public health, explained: Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free national newsletter here. Maternal deaths and serious childbirth complications in the United States are often preventable. Dr. Elliott Main, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Stanford University and a founder of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, has spent decades studying why mothers die or nearly die from pregnancy and childbirth — and what can be done to protect them. Main helped pioneer the creation of what have become national “patient safety bundles” and toolkits to help hospitals and health care providers standardize their use of evidence-based best practices for identifying complications early and providing effective treatments. In recent years, about 650 to 1,200 women across the United States have died annually from causes related to pregnancy, according to federal data. Thousands more have been at risk of dying because of severe complications, including from hemorrhaging, cardiac and bl