Pregnancy-related deaths are dropping. Here's why doctors aren't satisfied.
The number of women dying while pregnant is returning to pre-pandemic levels following a worrisome 2021 spike, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
The number of women dying while pregnant is returning to pre-pandemic levels following a worrisome 2021 spike, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
In 2022, 817 U.S. women died either while pregnant or soon after giving birth, down from 1,205 the previous year.
“If you look at 2021, we had such a sharp increase as we were really still in the pandemic and still dealing with disruptions of care, the fear of coming into the healthcare space and the inability to access care during that time,” said Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell, an OB-GYN at Ochsner Medical Center in Kenner, Louisiana. She was not involved in the new report, which was published Thursday by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
The maternal mortality rate in 2022 was 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 32.9 per 100,000 in 2021, according to the new report.
“It’s looking like it’s returning to a pre-pandemic level,” said Donna Hoyert, the report’s author and an NCHS health scientist. The same appears to be true for preliminary 2023 data, she said.
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