Why is the Caribbean still failing mothers after childbirth?

From unscreened postpartum depression in Jamaica to preventable maternal deaths across the Dominican Republic and beyond, the Caribbean's maternal health crisis demands urgent policy action — not just awareness.

The Caribbean's postpartum and maternal health crisis is measurable, preventable, and worsening in key areas. From Jamaica's absence of standardized mental health screening to the Dominican Republic recording 177 maternal deaths in 2025, multiple data points confirm that the postpartum period remains systemically underserved across the region. PAHO's data underscores that the leading physical causes of maternal death — postpartum hemorrhage, hypertensive disorders such as preeclampsia and eclampsia, and severe pregnancy-related infections — are nearly all preventable with timely, quality care. Meanwhile, a 2025 study by the Center for Gender Studies at the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (INTEC), titled Safe and Respectful Motherhood of Human Rights: Debts, Arrears and Institutional Violence towards Women, reports that 9 out of 10 maternal deaths in the Dominican Republic are preventable if proven interventions are applied, including quality maternal care and universal access to contraception. To clarify the Dominican Republic figures: 124.8 deaths per 100,000 live births is the 2024 rate per SINAVE preliminary data, while 177 deaths is the full-year 2025 absolute count — sequential data points from the same surveillance system, not contradictory figures. Separately, the region recorded only a 17% decline in maternal mortality between 2000 and 2023 — the smallest reduction globally over that period — a distinct baseline from any pandemic-era recovery comparison.

The consequences of failing mothers in the postpartum period extend far beyond the individual. Untreated postpartum mental health conditions impair infant cognitive and emotional development, destabilize families, and reduce long-term economic productivity. On the physical side, the Dominican Republic's rate of 124.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2024 — nearly double the regional average — signals a health system under severe strain. Regionally, Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the smallest decline in maternal mortality globally since 2000, just 17%, leaving thousands of preventable deaths unaddressed each year.

"More than 20,000 newborns die each year from birth defects in the Americas, and nearly 22% of deaths in the first month of life are associated with these conditions."

— Pablo Durán, Regional Advisor on Perinatal and Neonatal Health, PAHO

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C360 View — Editorial Opinion

The Caribbean cannot keep celebrating births while quietly failing the women who survive them. The data is damning enough: preventable deaths accounting for the vast majority of maternal fatalities in the Dominican Republic, a region posting the world's smallest decline in maternal mortality, and Jamaican mothers left to navigate postpartum mental health crises without standardized screening or guaranteed follow-up. These are not statistics — they are policy choices masquerading as tragedies.

Caribbean governments must treat postpartum care — both physical and psychological — as the serious public health investment it is. That means mandating mental health screening, not leaving it to individual clinicians' discretion. It means integrating midwifery and traditional birth attendants into formal health systems with respect and resourcing. And it means directing political will toward the women who build Caribbean families and communities, rather than waiting for the next alarming study to prompt a press release.

The conversation must shift, as Redwood writes, from stigma to systems. The Caribbean has the expertise. The question is whether it has the will.