Rising maternal death rates in the USA
The linked JAMA Network Open study covers pregnancy-related deaths in the United States from 2018 to 2022, with especially severe risk for Black women and a weak international ranking for the country overall.
Why it matters: maternal mortality is a sensitive test of obstetric care, insurance access, and equity. Cross-country comparisons, even with measurement caveats, still signal underperformance.
Watch how abortion-law changes and reporting differences may affect later data. The takeaway is that U.S. maternal safety is a public health emergency, not a niche specialty metric.
The rate for black women is slightly worse than the risk of giving birth in Iraq. This puts the US as a whole in 77th place, between Uzbekistan and Tunisia. Recent abortion laws have likely made the data even worse. One caveat, the death rates may not be counted in this manner in some countries. LS