US maternal deaths rose by 40 percent in 2021, the latest year for which statistics are now available, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of maternal deaths rose from 754 in 2019 to 861 in 2020 and 1,205 in 2021. The maternal mortality rate, at nearly 32 per 100,000 births, is back to where it was in 1965, a staggering regression of more than half a century.
Women who give birth today in the United States are nearly four times more likely to die than their own mothers were when they gave birth. The US maternal death rate hit its all-time low of 6.6 per 100,000 births in 1987. It was in single digits from 1978 to 2002, then rose steadily, doubling by 2017, then skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly doubling again.
— source wsws.org | 16 Mar 2023
