From Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Kirk Cox’s office (R-Colonial Heights) … the Virginia House of Delegates is continuing to highlight 51 unique accomplishments of the 51 members of the Republican-led House of Delegates from the 2019 General Assembly session….
According to a recent study by USA Today [1], approximately 700 mothers die each year in the United States from pregnancy or childbirth complications and another 50,000 suffer severe injuries.
This year, the House of Delegates passed legislation creating a maternal mortality review team [2] within the Virginia Department of Health. The legislation will require the Department of Health to review the rate of pregnancy-associated and pregnancy-related deaths in the Commonwealth, identify risk factors of pregnancy-associated or pregnancy-related deaths, identify other factors contributing to pregnancy-associated and pregnancy-related deaths, and develop recommendations for prevention and intervention programs to reduce the rate death and injury.
The bill also requires certain health care providers, law-enforcement officers, funeral directors, or other persons having knowledge of pregnancy-associated and pregnancy-related deaths to report such deaths.
Most importantly, this legislation saves the lives of mothers in Virginia. For that reason, creating a maternal mortality review team is another of the 51 accomplishments by the 51 members of the Republican-led House of Delegates.