The US maternal mortality rate — already the worst in the industrialized world — rose in 2020 to its highest level in half a century, with black women three times more likely to die than white women, data showed yesterday.
A US National Center for Health Statistics report showed that the rate was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, far higher than comparable countries, such as Canada, where it was 7.5 per 100,000, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics for the same year.
Overall, 861 women were identified as having died of maternal causes, which the WHO defines as a death while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management.
In 2019, the number of deaths per 100,000 live US births was 20.1, while in 2018 it was 17.4.
“We observed increases across a broad number of categories, and COVID-19 likely contributed,” Donna Hoyert, who authored the report, told reporters.
However, she added, the disease was not mentioned in 88 percent of cases, and was thus only a part of the overall picture.
Despite spending more than twice per person on health than the average of high-income nations, the US has historically remained an outlier on maternal mortality compared with its peers.
Across the world, maternal mortality dropped throughout the 20th century thanks to advances in medical care such as antibiotics and basic hygiene, but the US has seen backsliding since 2000, unlike most other countries.
The last time the US rate was officially this high was 1968, although a new reporting methodology was introduced in 2018.
“Most of the peer countries have some form of universal healthcare,” Boston University professor Eugene Declercq, who studies the field, told reporters.
“What we do in the United States is we focus on care so intently on the time of birth — and that’s nice — but the fact of the matter is, women enter their pregnancies in a less healthy state because they’re not covered,” he said.
Certain conservative-led states, such as Texas and Alabama, have increased hurdles to eligibility to Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program, Declercq said.
Upper income limits to enroll in Medicaid are lower for women who are pregnant, but there is a greater chance that by the time they become pregnant, they have untreated chronic conditions.
Limiting access to abortion — as conservative-led states have increasingly done in the past few years — is also linked to worse maternal health outcomes, a study in the American Journal of Public Health found last year.
The racial breakdown of the 2020 figures reveal widening disparities.
The number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births was 55.3 among black women, compared with 19.1 among white women, which would by itself still be higher than peer countries.
Here, too, there are thought to be many factors, and experts say it is not as simple as race being a surrogate for socioeconomic conditions, such as access to care and environmental stressors, although these undoubtedly play a role.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including