According to the Wall Street Journal (“WSJ”), 1,205 women in the United States died during or shortly after pregnancy in 2021. This represents a 40% increase from the previous year. That puts the US back to its 1965 level, when 1,189 women died.
The maternal mortality rate in the US is higher than in any other high-income country. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 24 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020. In comparison, there are significantly fewer in France (eight), Great Britain (ten) and Canada (eleven). While maternal deaths declined in many countries between 2000 and 2020, in the US they increased by 78%.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Nawal Nour, chief of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, told the WSJ. “We’ve been working hard to steer the trend in the right direction and it just doesn’t look like we’re going in that direction.”
Pandemic worsened situation
The pandemic, in particular, has had a big impact on the high death rate of recent years, according to doctors and health officials. They exacerbated longstanding problems like access to health care and heart disease.
Pregnant women are also at greater risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from Covid-19 — especially if they aren’t vaccinated, a US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study has found. The survey also showed that lockdowns and fears of contagion have caused many people to postpone essential treatments during the pandemic.
Health problems often as a cause
According to the CDC, one of the main reasons for the high maternal mortality rate is cardiovascular disease and pulmonary embolism. But uncontrolled bleeding and problems that can be traced back to high blood pressure are also mentioned as the main causes.
According to doctors, some complications during pregnancy and after childbirth can also be attributed to increased obesity and deteriorating heart health. About 42% of all adults in the United States are considered obese, and nearly half have high blood pressure, according to the CDC. About eleven percent have diabetes, 38 percent have high blood sugar.
Health officials and doctors say that more than 80% of all pregnancy-related deaths in the United States are preventable. Above all, improving and strengthening heart health must be worked on long before pregnancy. “Heart health in pregnancy has deteriorated over the past decade,” said Sadiya Khan, an assistant professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “The time before pregnancy is the right time to prepare for it in terms of health.”
Blacks mostly affected
Black women are the most affected. Their mortality rate is 2.6 times that of white women. Blacks make up about 14% of the total US population, US Census Bureau data shows. The death rate among Hispanic mothers surpassed that of white mothers in 2021.
Blacks are also more likely to be hospitalized and die than whites, the data show. “It’s sad but not surprising,” said Veronica Gillispie-Bell, a gynecologist and associate professor at Ochsner Health, a health facility in New Orleans.
Higher mortality rates among black women would also reflect inequalities in health care. Health care facilities are also more likely to ignore black patients’ concerns, studies show. According to the CDC, economic stability and educational opportunities play an important role in pregnancy-related mortality.
Restrictive laws increase maternal mortality
According to a Tulane University study, the high maternal mortality rate in the US can also be explained by significantly more restrictive abortion laws. On the one hand, this is about the increase in clandestine and possibly lay abortions and, on the other hand, the fact that many women are being forced to continue to be pregnant due to stricter abortion laws.
Socioeconomic factors also make pregnancy significantly more risky for marginalized groups than others. What is meant here is primarily black women.
Wyoming bans abortion pills
In the US state of Wyoming, Governor Mark Gordon recently signed legislation making it illegal to prescribe and sell abortion pills. Wyoming became the first state to enact a ban on abortion pills. Violators face fines of up to $9,000. The law is expected to take effect on July 1.
The bill passed Wyoming’s Republican-dominated legislature earlier this month. Specifically, it states that it is illegal to “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell, or use any drug to induce or perform an abortion.”
The law does not affect the morning-after pill or any treatment needed to protect a woman whose health or life is at risk. Necessary treatments in case of miscarriage are also excluded.
Harsh criticism of abortion pill ban
“A person’s health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions,” said Wyoming American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) director Antonio Serrano. “This also applies to the decision to have an abortion.”
Wyoming is one of several states in the US where legal debates over banning abortion have become increasingly heated. After the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade annulled abortion rights, more than a dozen US states have enacted near-total abortion bans. However, several of them have been suspended by the courts.
Also in Texas debate on possible ban on pills
Also in the US state of Texas, Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk recently dealt with a possible ban on the abortion pill mifepristone, which was passed more than 20 years ago.
AP/Senate Judiciary Committee Texas Federal Judge Kacsmaryk Was Employee Of Former President Donald Trump
This was preceded by a lawsuit by the right-wing conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom. This accused the FDA of having approved a “dangerous” drug without adequate testing. Kacsmaryk, who handled the process, was appointed by then-US President Donald Trump and is considered an archconservative.
More than every second mifepristone abortion
Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000 and is used to terminate a pregnancy up to the tenth week. After the abortion of the nation’s fundamental right to abortion, the prescription of the abortion pill increased in the United States.
Pro-choice abortion advocates are now concerned about the Texas trial. The decision could have a big impact on the lives of many women in the United States. After all, the abortion pill mifepristone is used in about 53% of all abortions.
AP/David Erickson Pro-choice activists fear for their rights
In November of last year, abortion opponents went to court to have mifepristone banned in the United States. However, the FDA dismissed the claim. According to her, the abortion pill has been used by more than 5.6 million women since it was approved in 2000. Only in about 1,500 cases would there be complications without a connection with mifepristone being established.