According to a recent study, maternal deaths in the US have increased by more than twice the amount of the previous two decades, with African American women dying at the highest rate.
The study, which was published on Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that American Indian and Native Alaskan mothers experienced the largest increases in death rates, while Black mothers experienced the nation’s highest rate of maternal mortality.
It also mentioned how some US states, as well as the racial or ethnic minority groups therein, performed worse than others.
Researchers examined maternal deaths between 1999 and 2019 for every state and five racial and ethnic groups, but not the pandemic spike.
“It’s a call to action for all of us to understand the root causes — to understand that some of it is about health care and access to health care, but a lot of it is about structural racism and the policies and procedures and things that we have in place that may keep people from being healthy,” said Dr. Allison Bryant, one of the study’s authors and a senior medical director for health equity at Mass General Brigham.
The US has the highest rate of maternal mortality among wealthy countries, which is defined as a death during pregnancy or up to a year afterward. Blood loss that is excessive, infections, heart disease, suicide, and drug overdose are common causes.
According to the study, African American women had the highest median maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births, which had tripled in some northeastern states over the previous 20 years.
According to a state report from 2021, black women in the state of Arkansas have a twofold increased risk of pregnancy-related fatalities compared to white women.
Dr. The Arkansas Department of Health’s chief physician for family health, William Greenfield, claimed that the disparity is significant and has “endured consistently” over time. In addition, he said it was difficult to pinpoint what was causing the state’s elevated maternal mortality rate for Black mothers.
The majority of the deaths, according to Greenfield and other reviewers, “were preventable.”
The report’s authors also emphasized the significance of understanding these differences in order to concentrate on locally rooted solutions and determine the required resources to address the problem.
