Pregnancy-Related Deaths in U.S. Continue To Rise, Study Finds

The U.S. has the highest rate of pregnancy deaths among all high income countries throughout the world, raising questions about the quality of prenatal care for many American women.

A new study has found that pregnancy-related deaths increased significantly in the U.S. over the last several years, particularly among Alaska Native and American Indian women.

According to findings published in the journal JAMA Network Open on April 9, researchers indicate that deaths linked to pregnancy-related causes increased across all ages, races, ethnic groups and states in the U.S. from 2018 to 2022. However, women ages 25 to 39 years old saw the greatest increase in deaths over that period, at nearly 40%.

Despite being one of the leading technological nations in the world, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that U.S. maternal deaths rates have increased significantly in recent years.

In fact, the U.S. has one of the highest maternal death rates among high-income developed countries, with the highest maternal death rates often among Black women.

For this latest analysis, researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Harvard Medical School analyzed 6,200 pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. from 2018 to 2022. They used data from births and pregnancy-related deaths from the CDC’s Wide Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research, including all pregnancy-related deaths among women ages 15 to 54 years.

According to the data, pregnancy-related death rates increased overall by 28% across all groups from 2018 to 2022. While every group saw increases in pregnancy-related deaths, women ages 25 to 39 years old were disproportionately affected and saw an increase in deaths by 37%.

American Indian and Alaska Native women had the highest death rate, suffering 106 deaths per 100,000 live births. That was followed by Black women who suffered 77 deaths per 100,000 births.

Pregnancy-related deaths varied across different states, ranging from 18 deaths per 100,000 births on the low end to 60 deaths per 100,000 births on the high end.

Researchers emphasized that if the national death rate was reduced to the lowest state death rate, more than 2,600 lives would have been saved across the four-year study period.

The leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths was heart disease. Other contributing factors included cancer, mental and behavior disorders, and drug-induced and alcohol induced deaths, especially among women who died after giving birth.

The increasing rates and widening disparities in maternal deaths should be an urgent public health priority, the research team warned. They indicated that a detailed analysis of the data can help identify opportunities for improvement and reduce avoidable deaths in the future.

Researchers emphasized that the United States continues to have the highest rate of pregnancy-related deaths among all high income countries, but most of these deaths are largely preventable.

Pregnant women can suffer health crises that are often easily preventable but are largely ignored. For example, U.S. preterm birth rates have not improved in more than 10 years and many pregnant women suffer preeclampsia, while hospitals are often unprepared to treat the condition, despite its simple cure.

Additionally, more women in the United States are going through pregnancy without receiving prenatal care, often because they lack insurance or access. This puts them and their offspring at a much higher risk of suffering adverse side effects and increases their risk of maternal death either during pregnancy or in the year following delivery.