Reviewer: Rachel S Simmons, PhD, DNP, WHNP, ANP, PMHNP, IBCLC (WellMed at Dr. Phillips Outpatient Psychiatry Group)
Description: Maternal mortality is a chronic public health injustice that has historically transcended race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status for centuries. This manuscript gives credence to the maternal mortality problems of the past and present. The book provides historical connotation to public outrage as the impetus for inquiry into maternal mortality while lauding clinical pioneers as longitudinal change agents. It archives the Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths (CEMD) as the foundational self-audit, capturing the significance of the problem with solutions. The title captures the content summary, covers the internal works, and asks a centurial question that leads readers to seek answers. The chapters begin with historical contexts followed by significant chronological events experientially informed by pioneering clinicians of the movement.
Purpose: The book discusses landmark changes and actions that led to safer childbirth. The CEMD, one of the most successful professional self-audits, demonstrates the significance of the maternal mortality problem. The book chronicles the document as a continuous needs assessment that led to incremental but significant best practices that decreased maternal mortality. A book of this magnitude serves as a historical preface for professionals seeking to decrease maternal mortality by advancing research and evidence-based practice for safer childbirth. The book meets its objectives by indicating how public outrage, social responsibility, and professional ethics lead to multidisciplinary actions toward decreasing maternal mortality and demonstrating how inquiry and collaboration saved women's lives.
Audience: The book will be helpful for doctors, midwives, women, politicians, activists, and scientists, as these individuals may be interested in continuous reductions in maternal mortality as public health and economic endeavors. It will also be beneficial in academia and can be incorporated into the curriculum for medical and midwifery students, particularly to show how interdisciplinary collaboration benefits public health outcomes. As such, the book substantially meets the needs of its intended audience. It includes centuries of inquiry from across the globe and is succinct, yet comprehensively written to meet the needs of diverse professionals seeking to learn from the past. Professionals will find self-reporting and continuous quality improvement methodologies pivotal for decreasing maternal mortality rates. Healthcare professionals challenged to care for women with neurodiversity or lower socioeconomic status and mothers of color will identify tacit variables unique to these populations. The authors are educationally and experientially credible, with direct and leading roles in developing the landmark CEMD.
Features: The book covers various topics, starting with a historical context, the first research question (why women died), and controversies and training surrounding doctors and midwives. Physiological complications such as hemorrhage, hypertension, infection, embolism, chronic illness, and pregnancy encompass a significant portion of the book. As a disparity researcher and clinician actively working in psychiatry, women's health, and family practice, I feel that the book's best aspects are related to neurodiverse patients with psychiatric illnesses. Most profound is the historical acknowledgment of racial disparities impacted by the social determinants of health that increase maternal mortality in specific groups. The writing is clear and concise while thoroughly covering historical and modern-day problems that often circumvent technological advances. Readers will find several graphs, tables, charts, and pictograms that aid visual learners. Although the book has few shortcomings, it only acknowledges the social determinants of health. It does not offer new suggestions to impact the arduous determinants responsible for the historic and disproportionate death of Black mothers.
Assessment: The historical and evidence-based content, chapter organization, and contextual illustrations make this a quality book of historical significance. Its usefulness is for professionals interested in providing equity and justice by reducing maternal mortality for all women. The book's influence comes from pioneers as transformative figures who improved women's lives and created a model for reducing future disparities. No other book historically and experientially captures the true essence of the CEMD. Building on this progress and utilizing the book as a guide for continuous quality improvement and reflection on public health matters are essential. The book challenges leaders to expand upon or create new pathways to improve women's lives by reducing maternal mortality.
