It's an hour before sunrise in New Orleans, and Markitha Sinegal is fighting with her boyfriend again. They're both 20 years old, living separately at their mothers' houses while raising their 9-month-old twin daughters together. The girls are in the room as their parents argue, as his mother tries to de-escalate the situation, as Markitha packs to leave — and as she falls to the floor, breathing raggedly, having been shot in the back. "I made a mistake!" her boyfriend cries. He takes Markitha's car and flees. She dies just before dawn on the day before what would have been her first Mother's Day. Markitha is just one of many mothers who have died by homicide while pregnant or soon after giving birth. Maternal mortality has been rising for the past two decades, Sara Chodosh says — not least due to pregnancy-associated homicides, as they're referred to by epidemiologists and health researchers. "Like the stories of the other mothers who died at the hands of their partners," @sarachodoshviz writes, the story of Markitha's death "began long before her boyfriend pulled the trigger. To understand how she died — and how to prevent more deaths of young mothers like her — we have to understand how she came to be in that bedroom in the first place." Read more at the link in our bio. | 🎨 @angelicaalzona #nytopinion