The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the higher rate in 2020 and 2021:
An increasing number of U.S. women are dying during pregnancy or soon after giving birth, according to the latest data on the maternal mortality rate.
In 2021, there were 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 23.8 per 100,000 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics reports March 16. The U.S. rate greatly exceeds those of other high-income countries. The total number of U.S. maternal deaths rose from 861 in 2020 to 1,205 in 2021.
There remains a wide disparity in the maternal mortality rate for Black women, at 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with white women, at 26.6 per 100,000. Many social determinants of health underlie this gap, including differences in the quality of care that Black women receive before, during and after pregnancy.
The NCHS report doesn't discuss the reasons behind the increase for 2021. But COVID-19 contributed to a quarter of maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in October. The pandemic also contributed to the mortality disparity between Black and white women, the GAO found, worsening existing structural inequities that lead to such issues as barriers to getting health care (SN: 4/10/20).
The U.S. maternal mortality rate has risen overall since 2018. The highest rate is among non-Hispanic Black women compared with Hispanic women and non-Hispanic white women.
The maternal deaths captured by the NCHS report are those that occur during pregnancy or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy, "from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management." These causes include hemorrhaging, infections and high blood pressure disorders such as eclampsia.
The report excludes deaths after 42 days and up to the first year after birth. But 30 percent of pregnancy-related deaths occur during this period, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in September, from an analysis of the years 2017 to 2019.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @03:22PM (6 children)
If you compare this result to the result of most European countries, it is outright scary. Most European countries are below 10 deaths per 100 000 births and some, like the Nordic countries, are less than 5 deaths per 100 000. When it comes to maternity-related mortality rates, USA is on par with countries like Malaysia, Lebanon, Syria and Mexico — and China.
And it is also scary that the trend is upward where the majority of all countries see a downward trend or stagnation, the latter mostly for countries with already very low mortality rates. I know it can be a contentious discussion but the United States does already have the honour of being one of the countries with the highest healthcare costs (actually has the highest, to the best of my knowledge), and yet it has poor outcomes in almost all categories like lifespan and maternity mortality.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 18, @05:11PM (2 children)
The US is not far off the work ethic that has mothers out working in the rice paddy when they go into labor, deliver, swaddle the newborn and finish the day's work in the field.
The difference in the US is that you are expected to drop everything and race to the hospital (with police escort if you are in the movies) and have your delivery done there, where your insurance can be billed for everything that happens.
Cynically: complications in labor and delivery drive bottom line results. For our first born mom spent two weeks in ICU, her OB's closing statement: "at least we had a good outcome.". Yeah, tens of thousands in additional billing, good outcome for who?
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(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 20, @06:23PM (1 child)
Really? You believe that Europeans don't give birth in hospitals? These deaths all come from lack of prenatal care, which the poor simply don't get in the US. Medicaid is a joke that most doctors refuse. In Europe, they consider health care to be a human right, as anyone with any empathy whatever does. "Can't afford the doctor? Fuck 'em, let 'em die" is the American way!
Older than dirt? Kid, I was a BETA TESTER for dirt! We never did get all the bugs out.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 20, @07:09PM
We had insurance, prenatal care from "the BEST" OB office available in Miami, and they still f-ed up their scripts and we ended up with 10 days between visits when the schedule was 7, would have (likely) caught the issue at day 7 with minimal problems, mom likely would have died if we waited until our appointment on day 10, we presented on the morning of day 9: mom was blind (due to elevated blood pressure pinching the optic nerves...) "Why didn't you tell us about these symptoms and to call when we saw them?" "Oh, it's 'so rare!!!' we don't want to un-necessarily scare moms to-be" - rates I read were like 1/80 overall, more like 1/40 in our age bracket. You are right: without pre-natal care the risk for these complications turning into deaths are much higher.
I wasn't trying to imply that Europeans (Australians, Koreans (South at least), Thai, most Indians, etc.) don't give birth in Hospitals. Was trying to imply that only U.S. hospitals are set up as for-profit institutions which manage their "product" (aka patients) to maximize profits.
>Fuck 'em, let 'em die" is the American way!
Not just for medicine, also for worker safety, environmental pollution, food and housing security, mental health, gun safety, etc.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by epitaxial on Sunday March 19, @02:58AM
Having access to healthcare that won't bankrupt you is helpful.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 20, @06:17PM (1 child)
In most European countries you can't be forced into bankruptcy for an appendectomy. My country was once the best at everything, but no longer is the best at much of anything. I blame cocaine in the board rooms and congressional offices, because cocaine kills empathy and grows greed and selfishness.
In 1965 an hour's work at minimum wage bought ten McDonald's hamburgers. Today it will buy two. In 1975 when I was discharged from the Air Force I saw my first panhandler. Now they're all over.
Why aren't my fellow Americans as ashamed of what my country has become since Reagan imported all that coke as I am?
Older than dirt? Kid, I was a BETA TESTER for dirt! We never did get all the bugs out.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 20, @07:16PM
>Why aren't my fellow Americans as ashamed of what my country has become since Reagan imported all that coke as I am?
Wasn't that Ollie North? I'm sorry, I can't remember...
And I'd call the coke a side effect of the underlying problem: putting psychopaths in charge because they can get higher profits.
I feel like post WWII U.S. society took a step toward providing a decent life "for those boys who risked their lives in service of our country." And, I agree, once Carter lost in 1980, it's been on greased skids to income inequality hell ever since.
There's a weird side effect of the cocaine, it takes down a lot of rich kids, ruins their lives before they get to the seats of power. The ones who can handle the coke and stay functional enough to pull off a decent interview on CNN, they're promoted to the C-level. The poor? that's what crack and meth are for, like diamonds, they keep the price of powder-coke high to separate the classes, although - as I recall - it was $25-30K per kilo back in the late 80s in Miami (when I was in college, with a coke dealer down the hall of the dorm), and as I understand it it's basically the same today, adjusted for inflation, somewhere in the neighborhood of $50K/k.
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(Score: 4, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday March 18, @04:00PM (21 children)
Thank God Roe v. Wade was overturned. Because as history teaches us, THAT is gonna improve health problems in pregnant mothers dramatically.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 18, @05:13PM
Bans of basically unstoppable common human activities just drive those activities underground. Underground health care is rarely as good as mainstream.
Transparency is always the answer.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @05:25PM (19 children)
I agree. The USA is much better off being ruled by nine likely very biased people in D.C. F the Constitution, F Congress, they're just there for show.
Moron.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday March 18, @06:06PM (2 children)
Where is the "missed the /s" or Whoosh mod?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @07:42PM
I considered it, but decided that only the morons will need the giant hint. The final word should clear it up for all but the most dense.
Excellent comments here, btw.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Sunday March 19, @11:08AM
Poe's Law arrived at the supreme court.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Saturday March 18, @06:36PM (15 children)
Well... yes. That's basically the situation now. You have 9 very unelected dictators for life sitting in these benches who can at will overturn any law any elected lawmaker passes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @07:51PM (11 children)
Theoretically only if they determine the law isn't constitutional. Messy business at best.
I'm not sure that the Founding Fathers considered the ramifications of political parties in their otherwise pretty brilliant creation. Pity.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @08:22PM (8 children)
> Theoretically only if they determine the law isn't constitutional. Messy business at best.
Ah bullshit. Vote 6-4, overrule precedent, inform us the previous SC decision was "egregiously wrong". Move into the next one.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @09:03PM (2 children)
All they ruled was that abortion wasn't a Constitutional right, which is exactly right. It's not in the Constitution, which means it's a State's Rights issue.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @09:11PM (1 child)
Exactly correct, but it doesn't fit the infant murderers' narrative. Not sure why they can't use birth control. I'll gladly pay for it for them, especially if it's permanent. Don't need more of those depraved scum. Oh the irony of the liberals rejecting power being given back to the people. Somethings very wrong in their "brains". I'm concluding they're insatiable, will always find something to complain about, even when it will backfire on them someday.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @10:53PM
> power being given back to the people
So tell us about all this power being given back to the people. Are they even asking the people? Not a chance after Kansas voted the wrong way. Oops!
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @09:06PM (4 children)
Overruling an erroneous and illegal precedent, giving the power back to the people in accordance with the Constitution, does't fit your narrative this time, so you call "bullshit"? You're beyond moron- you're in moron's second basement. You want to subvert the US Constitution without a proper Congressional Amendment. I call you traitor. You're such a moron I pity you, but you shouldn't be allowed to vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @10:54PM (2 children)
I find your comment egregiously wrong. Case closed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @11:57PM (1 child)
Wow, brilliant response. Bravo!
/s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, @01:24PM
Good enough for the finest legal minds on the Supreme Court.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday March 20, @08:59PM
Ah yea! Nothin says "don't tread on me" like handing all of your private medical information over to the federal government!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday March 19, @05:33AM (1 child)
They did, and warned us that political parties were the greatest enemy of democracy.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 20, @06:32PM
That may be correct. I personally consider anyone who votes for a party rather than the individual candidates to be stupid lemmings; that ballot is a vote to hire someone. You want to hire someone on the basis of being in your club rather than fitness for the job? That's how Trump, probably the least qualified president in US history got elected. And it almost cost us our democracy.
Older than dirt? Kid, I was a BETA TESTER for dirt! We never did get all the bugs out.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 20, @06:28PM (2 children)
All the Republicans I know personally want term limits for legislators. I say they all have term limits, if they do a lousy job they're out when their limited term is up, and can be re-elected if they do good work.
I want term limits for Supreme Court judges. Say, eight or ten years and out, like the democratically elected president.
Older than dirt? Kid, I was a BETA TESTER for dirt! We never did get all the bugs out.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 20, @07:25PM (1 child)
The framers of the system specifically wanted long terms for Supreme Court Justices, but I don't think they envisioned the kind of lifespans we're experiencing today, nor the corrupting influences of all that time in the halls of power.
I'm in favor of both term limits, and age limits (sorry Bernie, the very old shouldn't be passing legislation that they'll never see the effects of), but I'd like to see them implemented as a kind of points system:
- Up to the current median life expectancy, elections are unaffected.
- If you are above the current median life expectancy, whatever your percentile rank is, say: older than 60% of living U.S. citizens expected age of death, use that to "trim" your election results. If you're the oldest person in the country, you'd need to win the election by a 75-25 or higher margin of the popular vote. If you're older than 75%, then you'd only need to win by 87.5-12.5.
This also should help keep the super-old out of office when life-extension gets more unevenly distributed than it already is.
Similar thing for term limits, two non-incumbents running against each other are unaffected. For each term served, an incumbent needs to win by additional margin.
https://old.reddit.com/r/DownWithIncumbency/ [reddit.com]
I think there's a quip attributed to Ben Franklin along the lines of: "House Guests and Fish have this in common: they both start to stink after three days." Similar applies to politicians, the longer they are in office, the less we should be trusting them to serve the interests of those who elected them.
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(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday March 21, @09:57AM
Politicians are a lot like diapers. Both tend to end up being full of shit and need to be replaced.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Saturday March 18, @07:06PM (1 child)
Healthcare in the United States is fragmented and expensive. Just trying to get a price is difficult. Finding a reasonable price at a doctor that has time for you is near impossible.
It is hard for any Doctor that wants to make even a middle of the road living to treat the large percentage of people that don't have insurance or money or time. The gap between the bottom rung of folks in the United States and even the middle class is so large, that it is basically two separate economies.
So many of the issues in the United States stem from the classes that exist. When you have such a large gap between the top and bottom, the folks at the bottom 50% have trouble affording anything.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @09:00PM
I see a much bigger spread between middle and upper class, but it's all a matter of definitions, where you draw the lines, etc.
I might be considered "middle class", maybe lower-middle, and healthcare cost is almost out of reach for me. Let's say, anything needing specialist, significant treatment, hospitalization, etc., the co-pay / co-insurance ("out-of-pocket") costs would drain me.
Full health coverage for all is what's needed. The healthcare world is much too used to charging huge money, no matter what. They need to go on a radical and strict money diet, and learn to be efficient and frugal.
I'm getting a bill for $480 from a healthcare business. It does not specify who, what, where, when, nor why. I can surmise who and when, and the supposed "doctor" did literally nothing. In fact, refused to do a diagnostic procedure, and now I have to pay $480? Which leads me to sue them, because "doctor's" refusal might have jeopardized my health and even life.
Lovely system we have in the US, huh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @08:24PM (4 children)
Friend, if you do not want to die from maternal complications simply do not have a baby, and the time-honored way to do this is to abstain from sexual intercourse. Or buttsex. Ooops, not that last bit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Saturday March 18, @10:07PM (2 children)
Yeah, that worked so well. Telling people to suppress the one instinct that is powerful enough that people kill and die for it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18, @10:56PM (1 child)
Buttsex?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Opportunist on Sunday March 19, @11:11AM
No thanks. I don't like it for the same reason I'm not a fan of Marmite. It's brown and smells kinda funky.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Saturday March 18, @10:15PM
No, no, God's ok with that [youtu.be]. Or at least God needs to address it during the next legislative session.