The US has highest rate of pregnancy-related death among high-income countries

by caron 4/14/2025, 3:39 PMwith 23 comments

by deIetedon 4/14/2025, 4:29 PM

> American Indian and Alaska Native women had the highest age-standardized annual and aggregated rate (106.3 deaths per 100 000 live births), followed by non-Hispanic Black women (76.9 deaths per 100 000 live births)

by JakeAlon 4/14/2025, 5:19 PM

This is misleading when you dig into the data. For starters every state and nation does not record deaths and causes of death consistently, so there's a lot of apples and oranges comparisons going on. Second, in the US depending on the state, any death within 90 days of giving birth is labeled as a pregnancy-related death. The person could be hit by a car, or die of a drug-overdose, and it would be still be identified as a pregnancy related death.

by ghufran_syedon 4/14/2025, 9:13 PM

“Although cardiovascular disease was the leading cause of the overall pregnancy-related deaths, cancer, mental and behavior disorders, and drug-induced and alcohol-induced death were important contributing causes of late maternal death”

by mbonneton 4/14/2025, 4:45 PM

Hmmm. What's unique about pregnancy in the US compared to other high-income countries I wonder? /s

by ty6853on 4/14/2025, 4:15 PM

>In the US, homicide, suicide, and drug overdose are the leading causes of pregnancy-associated death

If you kill yourself with recreational drugs or intentionally that is not pregnancy-related/associated, except by the most disingenuous peddlers who want to go on a semantic crusade about what 'related'/'associated' is in order to push their agenda.