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Pregnancy-related deaths in US drop to pre-pandemic levels, new data says
Donna Hoyert, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maternal mortality researcher, said that COVID-19 seems to be the main explanation for the improvement.
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A pregnant woman with her daughter. / Representational stock image
Pregnancy-related deaths in the US have reduced back to pre-pandemic levels, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated.
Donna Hoyert, a maternal mortality researcher at CDC, was quoted by Associated Press saying that COVID-19 seemed to be the main explanation for the improvement in figures.
Experts argue that the coronavirus could be more dangerous for pregnant women and that in the worst days of the pandemic, burned-out physicians might have ignored these worries.
About 680 women died last year during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth, according to the CDC data. This was down from 817 deaths in 2022 and 1,205 in 2021.
Hoyert said that fewer death certificates were now mentioning COVID-19 as one of the reasons for pregnancy-related deaths. The count of such cases was over 400 in 2021 and only 10 last year, she said.
The CDC includes women who die during childbirth, while pregnant or within 42 days of pregnancy for such cases. Leading causes of death are excessive bleeding, infections and blood vessel blockages.
Ashley Stoneburner, director of applied research and analytics for an advocacy organization called the March of Dimes, however, said that there wasn't much done in the last five years to lower the maternal death rate in the US. Furthermore, racial disparities are said to still exist in pregnancy-related deaths. The death rate in Black moms is said to be more than two-and-a-half times higher than their White or Hispanic counterparts.
March of Dimes recently started an education campaign for more pregnant women to be able to consider low doses of aspirin as they are at risk of preeclampsia — a high blood pressure condition that can affect both mother and baby.
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