Maternal mortality is a basic public health measure. It is also one of the many health outcomes on which the United States ranks much lower than other comparably developed nations. As per Ann Simmons’ superb article on the subject of maternal mortality in the US and specifically in the state of Texas:
A woman in the U.S., where the maternal death rate more than doubled between 1987 and 2013, is more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than in any country but Mexico among the 31 industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that reported data.
As Simmons goes on to note, the state of Texas, of all of the US’s 50 states, has one of the worst maternal mortality rates. But most distressingly, Texas’s statistics–like the entire nation’s–show health disparities on this measure. Some Americans have substantially worse maternal mortality rates than other Americans. Those Americans are African-American women.
The maternal death rate in Texas after 2010 reached “levels not seen in other U.S. states,” according to a report compiled for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, based on figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Black women in Texas are dying at the highest rates of all. A 2016 joint report by the Texas Department of State Health Services’ Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force found that black mothers accounted for 11.4% of Texas births in 2011 and 2012, but 28.8% of pregnancy-related deaths.
Simmons goes on to adeptly break down the results of several investigations into health disparities in maternal mortality. I strongly recommend the article to anyone following global public health, maternal mortality, pregnancy and childbirth, and health disparities.
