Why So Many Mothers Die in America
A new federal report underlines the disparities that put women’s lives at risk
A new report about pregnancy-related deaths in the United States suggests that the solution to the country’s maternal mortality problem lies far beyond the hospital delivery room, where most media attention and health interventions have been focused in the past several years.
The report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published Tuesday, analyzes time of death and cause of death of pregnant women and new mothers for the first time. It found that maternal deaths are split about evenly into three distinct time frames: pregnancy, the day and week of childbirth, and up to one year after birth. The leading causes of maternal death varied greatly depending on the time period.
The new analysis also determined that about 60% of all maternal deaths could have been prevented — a statistic that held true for all races. However, black and Native American women still die from pregnancy-related complications at a rate that’s about three times higher than white women.
Taken together, these new data points suggest that nonmedical factors, like housing, food insecurity, or a lack of medical coverage, can contribute to a new mother’s death and should be part of any…
