In 2023, in the richest and most powerful nation on Earth, it should not be life threatening to have a child and give birth. Yet for years, mothers in these United States, especially Black mothers, have suffered elevated death rates, rates that only increased during COVID, as women of all ethnicities experienced the sharpest annual increase in deaths in the history.
New CDC Numbers reveal that 1,205 women died of pregnancy-related causes in 2021, compared with 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019. That represented a 38% jump in one year and a 64% jump in two years, up to the death rate. highest maternal record since 1965. Egad. Much of the increase can be attributed to COVID; the virus was a contributing factor in at least 400 maternal deaths, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Although that particular public health emergency has since subsided (though not gone), two emergencies remain within it.
First, the overall rate in the United States was and remains much higher than its peer countries, and remains high by international standards, whether you are white, Latino, or black. Our maternal mortality is 54% higher than Russia’s; almost double Canada; more than twice that of the UK, France and Italy, and five times that of Japan and Germany.
Second, the race-based disparities here are especially glaring and stubborn. Black women are 2.6 and 2.5 times more likely to die from maternal causes than white or Hispanic women.
There is no single and simple reason for that embarrassing fact. research suggests economic disadvantages, discrimination by healthcare providers and chronic stress add up to take their toll. And the problem is inextricable by the fact that, even after the passage of Obamacare, too many African Americans lack affordable access to quality medical treatment.
Last year, the Biden administration exposed a thoughtful plan to save the lives of mothers; passage of extensive federal legislationa dozen bills collectively dubbed Momnibus, would go further.
Do not waste your time. American women are dying in far too great numbers. As long as they do, US stocks will remain on life support.
