Maternal mortality in the United States is rising.
The United States will experience one of the highest maternal mortality rates in its history in 2021, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report also noted that the maternal mortality rate for black women is more than twice that of white women.
A total of 1,205 women in the U.S. will die during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth in 2021, up from 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) said.
The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries, with the highest number of deaths in 2021 since the mid-1960s.
“The most powerful country in the world should not accept this reality.” “This is a crisis,” White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said.
The NCHS said there will be 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021, up from 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020 and 20.1 per 100,000 in 2019.
The maternal mortality rate for black women in 2021 was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times higher than the 26.6 deaths per 100,000 live births for white women.
Iffath Abbasi Hoskins, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said: “The fact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had an enormous and tragic impact on maternal mortality cannot overshadow the fact that the maternal mortality crisis was and still is” .
Hoskins said in a statement that eliminating “racial health inequities” must become a public health priority.
“Pregnant and postpartum blacks continue to disproportionately increase maternal deaths at an alarming rate,” Hoskins said in a statement. “This trend must stop.”
The World Health Organization defines a maternal death as “any death in a woman during pregnancy or within 42 days after termination of pregnancy of any kind related to or resulting from pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes”.
Although maternal mortality has fallen by a third in 20 years, the United Nations recently reported that every two minutes a woman dies from problems during pregnancy or childbirth.
(according to agency opinion)
