Maternal mortality rates are spiking. How can the trend be reversed?

Show Me the Science

In this episode, we report on the disturbing spike in maternal mortality rates in recent years. Although rates of maternal death have long been higher in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries, the rate recently reached its highest level since 1965. The number of deaths of mothers has risen from 17.4 deaths per 100,000 births in 2018 to 20.1 deaths in 2019 and 23.8 in 2020 — the first year of the pandemic. Then in 2021, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were 32.9 deaths per 100,000 births. In all, about 1,200 people died during pregnancy, or within six weeks of giving birth, a 40% increase from the previous year.

Ebony B. Carter, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, says the groups most likely to be affected by these rising numbers are poor. Many tend to live far away from medical care, and many are members of minority groups. The maternal death rate among Black Americans was 69.9 per 100,000, 2.6 times higher than the rate for pregnant white Americans.

Carter says physicians and scientists at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital are working hard to provide good prenatal care, but she explains that when people get pregnant, they often already have serious health issues that can contribute to maternal death, such as diabetes or hypertension, and put them and their babies at risk.

She says the time to try to intervene is before chronic illnesses develop and make an eventual pregnancy risky. That, she says, will require an intentional focus from health-care professionals and systemic changes in how health care and other social services are provided in the United States.

The podcast, “Show Me the Science,” is produced by WashU Medicine Marketing & Communications at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.