# @thekansascitystar on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CkDtZkuM18h
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/19115414-thekansascitystar-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/3c32e7f445.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-10-23T13:30:05.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Kansas City Star (@thekansascitystar) — https://gondola.cc/thekansascitystar

## Caption

For the longest time, when Alea Lovely thought about birth, she also thought about death.

“Since I was 10 I said, ‘I don’t want to have kids because I don’t want to die,’” said thelovelyalea, a 38-year-old podcaster who lives in South Kansas City. “If there was a fear of giving birth, then I had the phobia.”

So two years ago, when Lovely got pregnant and spent three days in painful labor before she was told she needed a cesarean section, she told her doctor she was scared she would die. 

An hour later, after suffering a postpartum hemorrhage, she nearly did.

Lovely knew that as a Black woman, the odds were stacked against her. Black women in the United States are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women, and Missouri, where Lovely had her baby, has had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country for years — the 12th worst in the nation. Kansas ranks 17th worst.

And while 650 to 700 people die of pregnancy-related problems every year in the United States, 50,000 to 60,000 women like Lovely suffer severe complications that can lead to short- or long-term health problems. The medical community calls these cases severe maternal morbidity. Those who almost die? “Near misses.”

Head to the link in our bio to read more about Missouri’s high maternal morbidity rate — and why solutions aren’t being implemented. This story is free for everyone.

#KansasCity #Missouri #MaternalMortality #MaternalHealth #LocalNews

## Stats

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## Tags

localnews, maternalhealth, maternalmortality, missouri, kansascity

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