The number of U.S. women who died the year following a pregnancy more than doubled between 1999 and 2019. One labor and delivery nurse is sharing information that may help keep birthing mothers safe. “If you or someone you love is going to give birth in a hospital, there is a question you need to ask before you go that can determine whether you are likely to have safe care or not,” said labor and delivery nurse Jen Hamilton. Her multi-part TikTok videos amassed a combined 300,000 views their first 24 hours. “You need to know whether the hospital you are going to give birth in follows AWHONN’s safe staffing standards,” she continued. “Your nurse should be caring for no more than two patients ever. And that should be on a bad day.”  AWHONN is the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. They publish an extensive 95-page heavily-researched document detailing their recommended standards for care. “I’m very fortunate to work on a unit where we have really good staffing most of the time,” Hamilton, a mom of two and author of the upcoming “Birth Vibes,” tells TODAY.com. “But I hear these stories from other nurses who work in places where unsafe staffing is the norm.” Hamilton suspects that some hospitals will be furious for her for sharing this information, but she felt it was too important to keep to herself. “I believe that if we’re living in a country that has the highest maternal mortality rate in any developed nation, that having unsafe staffing is a big contributor to this,” she says. A spokesperson for AWHONN tells TODAY.com that although their staffing standards do not have “a single universal ratio” for the number of patients a nurse can treat at one time, they generally recommend one nurse for every patient in active labor.  “Numerous studies have validated the relationship between inadequate staffing and inpatient mortality and adverse events,” AWHONN tells TODAY.com via email. When should you ask about staffing standards? Ideally, Hamilton suggests asking about staffing standards well in advance of your arrival at the hospital. But getting a straight answer might take some work, she suspects, especially after her viral videos have raised awareness.  Who should you ask about staffing standards? Hamilton suspects that it might be tricky to simply call the hospital and ask over the phone. Instead, she suggests trying to find a connection to someone who works on the labor and delivery unit by asking friends or posing the question in a local parent Facebook group. “You’re only going to get the right answer from people who live it,” she says. You can ask them, “How often are you asked to care for more than two patients?” What should you do if you get to the hospital and your nurse has more than 2 laboring patients? If your nurse is caring for more than two patients in active labor at one time, you should ask for the hospital’s house supervisor, Hamilton says. Then you can do two things: Ask if the hospital administrator is aware of the unsafe staffing issue, and then request that they document in your chart that you are being cared for by a nurse with an “unsafe assignment.” Hamilton stresses that if there is a staffing issue, you should never blame the nurse, who is simply doing their job. And if you choose to escalate the issue, stress that the feedback is coming from you and not from the nurse. How Does Documenting the Unsafe Staffing Issues In Your Chart Help? If anything happens to go wrong with your care, adding a note in your chart “automatically points a finger at the unsafe staffing, that the hospital knew and did not do anything about it,” Hamilton says. Simply asking for documentation might spur the hospital into action. In the comments section of one of her videos, Hamilton posed this question to nurses: “How fast would (asking for documentation) get something to happen?”  Nurses responded:  “Sooooo fast. Admin on call’s phone would be ringing.” “Absolutely fast. But as a nurse, I tell management I’m not even clocking in if it’s unsafe.” “Soo fast. They would be offering big money to come in — that they didn’t have two hours earlier — to make it safe from the start!” If your hospital has unsafe staffing issues, should you go to a different hospital? If you are at a hospital and in active labor and then find out that their staffing would be deemed unsafe by AWHONN, you have some choices to make. But there’s no clearcut answer about whether you should stay at the hospital or go elsewhere. “That’s always a personal decision,” Hamilton says. If you are in the hospital for an induction for a non-medical reason, however, you should “understand that there’s always an option to leave the hospital,” she adds. “It’s a risk-benefit analysis that everybody has to make for themselves.”  Share this information with your labor support person Hamilton wants to make sure that patients can advocate for themselves; however, it can be tough to do so while in active labor.  “It’s important for support people and doulas to keep this in mind,” she says. This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY: I Was Left out of a Dinner With Mom Friends. 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