NPR and ProPublica teamed up for a six-month-long investigation on maternal mortality in the U.S. Among our key findings:
- More American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than any other developed country. Only in the U.S. has the rate of women who die been rising.
- There’s a hodgepodge of hospital protocols for dealing with potentially fatal complications, allowing for treatable complications to become lethal.
- Hospitals — including those with intensive care units for newborns — can be woefully unprepared for a maternal emergency.
- Federal and state funding show only 6 percent of block grants for “maternal and child health” actually go to the health of mothers.
- In the U.S, some doctors entering the growing specialty of maternal-fetal medicine were able to complete that training without ever spending time in a labor-delivery unit.
A major driver of maternal health disparities in the U.S. is the growing contribution of non-communicable diseases to maternal mortality.
John Doe
Researcher
Maternal mortality ratios also vary significantly by socioeconomic status and geography. Women living in poverty and women in certain states experience significantly higher maternal mortality ratios than the national average.
The graph below shows percentages of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States during 2011–2014 caused by:
Cardiovascular Diseases
15.2%
Non-Cardiovascular Diseases
14.7%
Infection or sepsis
12.8%
Hemorrhage
11.5%
Cardiomyopathy
10.3%
