The U.S. is one of just eight countries in the world where deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth rose between 2003 and 2013, a new report says. That puts it in the company of countries such as Afghanistan, Belize and El Salvador. While U.S. maternal mortality rates remain lower than those in many poor countries, they are much higher than those in developed countries – ranging from the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia – says the report, published last week in The Lancet.
The maternal death rate per 100,000 U.S. women was 12.4 in 1990, 17.6 in 2003 and 18.5 in 2013, the report says. The global rate per 100,000 was 209 and falling in 2013; the rate in developed countries was 12.1 – half the 1990 rate.
The continued rise in the U.S. may reflect “the performance of the health system as a whole,” and “poorer access to essential health care,” compared with other developed countries, said study author Nicholas Kassebaum. It also may reflect health problems in U.S. women, he said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said growing numbers of U.S. women enter pregnancy with hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, putting them at higher risk for complications and death.
That’s all the more reason for women planning pregnancies to see their doctors before they conceive, said Siobhan Dolan, a medical adviser to the March of Dimes and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
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