In 2021, the U.S. had one of the worst rates of maternal mortality in the country’s history, according to
a new report
from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report found that 1,205 people died of maternal causes in the U.S. in 2021. That represents a 40% increase from the previous year.
These are deaths that take place during pregnancy or within 42 days following delivery, according to the
World Health Organization
.
The U.S. rate for 2021 was 32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, which is more than ten times the estimated rates of
some other high income countries
, including Australia, Austria, Israel, Japan and Spain which all hovered between 2 and 3 deaths per 100,000 in 2020.
According to
data from the World Health Organization
, the maternal mortality rate in high-income nations overall was 12 per 100,000 live births in 2020, while in low-income countries it was 430 per 100,000.
International comparisons of maternal deaths are difficult because of differences in methodology in tracking the data, warns the author of the new U.S. report, Donna Hoyert, a health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics, at the CDC. But, she notes, the U.S. is “usually not faring all that well” on maternal mortality.
“There is just no reason for a rich country to have poor maternal mortality,” says
Eileen Crimmins
, professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California. The CDC’s
latest compilation of data
from state committees that review these deaths found that 84% of pregnancy-related deaths…
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