Why We Exist
Abide Women’s Health Services exists to improve birth outcomes in
communities with the lowest quality of care.
These are the problems we address:
***All stats courtesy of 2016 Dallas County Health Assessment***
The Numbers
Maternal mortality rates should be less than 10/100,000.
And yet, in Texas, maternal mortality has doubled since 2000 from 17.4 to 35.8/100,000.
The rate for Black women in Texas is 80-100/100,000
The rate for Latina women is 20-40/100,000
These rates are significantly higher than for white women.
Infant mortality should be less than 6.0/1000 live births. However:
- DallasCounty: 6.6/1000 live births
- 5.1/1000 for white babies
- 10.7-11.7/1000 for Black babies
Low birth weight should be less than 8.0/1000. However:
- South Dallas has a very high rate of low birth weight categories
- 7.1/1000 for white babies in Texas
- 13.3/1000 for Black babies in Texas
- 5% of women in Dallas County had no prenatal care before giving birth. “This includes 6% of African-American, 4% of Latino and 2.4% of Caucasian births. Considering communities, percentages range from 7.6% in South Dallas to 2.1% in Outer NE Dallas who did not access prenatal care.”
- Only 35% of women in Dallas County have prenatal care in the first trimester
- Texas has one of the highest teen birth rates in the country at 41/1000, compared to the national rate of 27/1000. Only five other state have higher teen pregnancy rates.
- South Dallas has a teen pregnancy rate of 96-120/1000 for women age 15-19, the highest in the county. Initiatives to offer free birth control have been offered, but nothing else.