In her recent article (Wausau Daily Herald, July 11), Sue Kettner discusses maternal mortality rates in the U.S. but fails to show how Family Planning Health Services will help reduce those rates.
Debating the 154-page Amnesty International report is beyond the scope of this article, but clearly Family Planning Health Services, FPHS, does not impact maternal mortality rates.
FPHS primarily dispenses contraceptives and abortifacients such as IUDs to women between the ages of 15 and 44 and focuses mostly on teens and young adults. They give names and locations of abortion providers to women. They also screen for and treat sexually transmitted diseases and perform pap smears and refer for prenatal care. They do not provide prenatal or obstetrical care and therefore cannot improve the maternal mortality rates.
In Wausau, women have good access to prenatal care. The major health care providers accept Medicaid and have community care programs for those who do not qualify for Medicaid but do not have insurance.
Ms. Kettner is implying that preventing pregnancy will reduce maternal mortality rates. This is like saying that the way to prevent car accidents it to give everyone a bicycle. There is no evidence in the report suggesting that the women who died from pregnancy did not want to be pregnant.
The five main causes of maternal mortality cited by the report are embolism, hemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, infection and cardiomyopathy -- they are not prevented by referring for prenatal care and certainly not by dispensing birth control and emergency contraception. These are complicated medical problems that are affected by many things such as the general health of the pregnant woman, changes in the body caused by pregnancy and complications at the time of delivery.
Helping women space their children will not change any of these factors and thus will not prevent maternal mortality rates. These problems can still occur in women receiving prenatal care as well as in women with children who are spaced far apart.
Supporting FPHS will not improve maternal mortality rates. It is misleading for Sue Kettner to give that impression. FPHS should not use the tragedy of maternal mortality rates to try to obtain community support.
Dr. Kimberly Couri is a family practice physician in Wausau who works in women's health.