The Maternal Death Rate of Black Women in America
Black-white disparities in maternal mortality—deaths related to pregnancy or childbirth—may be larger than previously reported. Maternal death is defined by the World Health Organization as, “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.”
In a historic and far-reaching decision, The U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on June 22, 2022, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half-century, no longer exists. Because pregnancy is riskier to women’s health than abortion, state initiatives to restrict abortion could lead to more deaths, particularly among Black women, new estimates suggest.
In 2020 according to the CDC, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 55.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.9 times the rate for non-Hispanic White women. The same study found Rates increased with maternal age rate for women aged 40 and over was 7.8 times higher than the rate for women under age 25. Maternal mortality rates fluctuate from year to year because of the relatively small number of these events, and possibly also due to issues associated with the reporting of maternal deaths on death certificates.
In a study by the American Public Health Association from 2021 to better understand racial and ethnic disparities in US maternal mortality, it was found that the main causes of death were, embolism and preeclampsia/eclampsia tied for the leading cause of maternal death across all racial and ethnic groups during pregnancy or within six weeks after pregnancy. followed by postpartum cardiomyopathy, hemorrhage, and complications from obstetric surgeries such as cesarean sections. Among White and Hispanic women, causes of maternal death ranked somewhat similarly. However, for Black women, preeclampsia/eclampsia was the leading cause of maternal death, followed by postpartum cardiomyopathy, embolism, and hemorrhage. Ectopic pregnancy, the fifth leading cause of maternal death for Black women, was not a leading cause for white or Hispanic women.
Closing the gap involves addressing structural racism—that is, those aspects of social, political, economic, and health care systems that reinforce inequity, researchers say.