maternal Health Care has been a priority for the Murphy Administration and this week the State Department of Health released its annual Hospital maternity care report card it gives New Jersey high marks for bringing down the number of C-sections performed and serious health complications that can come with childbirth but as Melissa Rose Cooper tells us a significant racial Gap remains C-sections put women and their babies at greater risk for serious complications so medical experts are applauding efforts to decrease the number of unnecessary C-sections performed in New Jersey for babies these complications can mean higher rates of infection it can lead to respiratory complications and it also causes Intensive Care Unit stays to be longer and we know for mothers it also puts them at higher risk for complications such as higher rates of hemorrhage um infections and and blood clots the state department of Health's latest Hospital maternity care report card shows cesarean delivery rates have continued to decline during recent years the percentage of birthing hospitals in New Jersey meeting the Human Services healthy people 2030 goal a target of 23.6 or fewer uh C-sections for our individuals that present uh with their uh first pregnancy their first birth at term um single a single birth and a Vertex presentation has increased from 16 percent uh to uh 35 data shows New Jersey cesarean delivery rate in 2020 was 32.9 percent that's a one percent drop from the year before and down from 35.7 when the state released its first hospital maternity care report card medical experts attributing the decline to improve improved birthing plans with patients as well as increase access to labor support this Administration has had a huge emphasis on increasing the Doula Workforce by covering doulas under Medicaid by providing training opportunities for doulas by forming the Dual learning collaborative and there's really strong evidence that shows that Doula presence or continuous labor support by doula's decreases C-section rates and although there are emergency situations when a C-section should be performed there are concerns that many of those procedures aren't medically necessary sometimes it is provider preference whether it's because if it's better with their schedule or maybe takes less time it can be that the patient requested it sometimes patients think that C-sections will be faster or less painful the report card also highlighting racial disparities with black women having the highest number of cesarean deliveries increasing their chances of complications including postpartum Hemorrhage and even death we're looking at fetal distress as the number one cause for why black women are having these C-sections and so um that's subjective are these black women delivering in hospitals where the staff is fully trained in fetal monitoring and the techniques to to manage that and are we just jumping right to a C-section um I've often heard black women be threatened and forced into having C-sections against their will even though they had time to labor so I think there's a lot of miseducation and misinformation when it comes to where black women are delivering at as well specifically looking at what the stages of labor look like and how long a woman should have an opportunity to be able to to labor down medical professionals agree the key to preventing unnecessary C-sections starts with making sure patients are fully educated and involved in the decision-making process they also say sticking to a standardized care plan could help ensure more equity in the birthing experience for NJ Spotlight news I'm Melissa Rose Cooper