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As more women die each year in the U.S. from pregnancy and childbirth, new federal data show that U.S. maternal mortality will rise again significantly in 2021, with black women dying more than white women. shown to be more than doubled. .
Experts say the ongoing maternal mortality crisis in the United States has been exacerbated by Covid-19, causing the death toll to rise “dramatically”.
The number of women who die of maternal causes in the United States will rise to 1,205 in 2021, according to a National Center for Health Statistics report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is a sharp increase from several years ago, with 658 in 2018, 754 in 2019 and 861 in 2020.
That is, in 2021, the year for which the most recent data are available, the U.S. maternal mortality rate was 32.9 per 100,000 live births, compared with 20.1 in 2019 and 23.8 in 2020.
The new report also highlights significant racial disparities in maternal mortality rates across the country. The mortality rate for black women in 2021 was 69.9 per 100,000 births for her, 2.6 times that for white women, and 26.6 per 100,000.
The data showed that the proportion increased with increasing maternal age. In 2021, the maternal mortality rate was 20.4 per 100,000 live births under age 25, from age 25 to age 39 she was 31.3, but above age 40 she was 138.5. . This means that the percentage of women over the age of 40 is 6.8 times her percentage of women under the age of 25.
Maternal mortality in the United States has risen steadily over the past 30 years, and this increase continued during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Questions remain about how the pandemic has affected maternal mortality in the United States, said Dr.
“What happened in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019 is Covid,” Cherot said. “This is kind of my reflection on Covid-19 and pregnancy during this time. Women were at higher risk of morbidity and mortality from Covid. It is well documented that not only is there an increased risk of death, but ventilation in the intensive care unit, pre-eclampsia, and blood clots all increase the risk of morbidity and mortality. increase.”
ACOG President Ifas Abasi Hoskins said in a statement Thursday that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists had previously expressed “great concern” that the pandemic would exacerbate the maternal mortality crisis in the United States.
“Preliminary data released in late 2022 in a U.S. Government Accountability Office report show that maternal mortality has soared in 2021, largely due to COVID-19. “It’s amazing to see an almost 40% increase in preventable deaths compared to .”
“New NCHS data also show that maternal mortality increased by nearly 60% from 2019 to 2021, just before the pandemic began. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic and tragic impact on maternal mortality. But that fact cannot obscure that the maternal mortality crisis already existed and still exists.”
Health officials have stressed that pregnant women should be vaccinated against Covid-19 so that both mother and baby can be protected.
Early in the 2020 pandemic, limited information about the risks and benefits of vaccines during pregnancy led some women to postpone vaccination. There is increasing evidence of the importance of getting vaccinated to prevent the risk of
The Covid-19 pandemic may also have exacerbated existing racial disparities in maternal mortality rates for black women compared to white women, said California-based site director of Ob Hospitalist Group, said Chasity Jennings-Nuñez, Ph.D., Chair of Perinatal/Gynecology. A division of Adventist Health-Glendale that was not involved in the new report.
“Maternal mortality continues to highlight the structural and systemic problems that were evident during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Jennings-Nuñez.
“Therefore, all factors known to have played a role in maternal mortality in the past – racial health inequalities, systemic racism and prejudice, and access to health care – are It continues to play a role in mortality,” she said. “Until we start addressing these issues, even without a pandemic, we will continue to see the numbers go in the wrong direction.”
Several policies have been introduced to address the maternal health crisis in the United States. This includes the Black Motherhood “Mama Bath” Act of 2021. This is a broad, bipartisan package of legislation aimed at providing prenatal and postnatal support for black mothers, including extending eligibility. For specific postpartum benefits.
As part of Momnibus, President Biden signed into law the bipartisan Mothers Protection Act in 2021, with other provisions passed through the House.
About 6.9 million women in the United States have little or no maternal health care, says the March of Dimes, which has campaigned for Momnibus.
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country, according to the latest data from the Commonwealth Foundation and the World Health Organization. Maternal mortality rates are stable or rising across the United States, but are declining in most countries.
“High rates of caesarean sections, inadequate prenatal care, and rising rates of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease may contribute to the high maternal mortality rate in the United States. Yes, many maternal deaths are the result of missed or delayed treatment,” Commonwealth Foundation researchers wrote in a report last year.
It is “disappointing” that maternal deaths continue to rise in the United States, said Dr. Elizabeth Langen, a high-risk maternal-fetal medicine physician at the University of Michigan Health von Woigtlander Women’s Hospital. She’s not involved in the latest reports, but she cares for people who have had serious complications during pregnancy or childbirth.
“Those of us who work in the field of maternity care have known this to be a problem in our country for quite some time. It’s really disappointing that the trend isn’t going in the right direction, it’s going in the worst direction on some level, and it’s going a little faster.”
“The health care system must accept ultimate responsibility for the women who die in our care,” she added. We need to think: How do we provide people with proper maternity care? How can we rest? How can we ensure that we have a chance to live a healthy life and get the best possible results during pregnancy?”
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