Researchers from the University of Maryland in College Park and Boston University used data from the National Center for Health Statistics to compare maternal deaths from 2018 through 2020. Maternal mortality was defined as death during pregnancy or within 42 days of pregnancy.
Three findings:
1. For the prepandemic period, the maternal death rate was 18.8 per 100,000 births. That rose to 25.1 per 100,000 for March through December 2020, marking a 33.3 percent increase. Late maternal deaths, or those that occurred up to one year after birth, also increased 41 percent.
2. Maternal death rates increased even more for minority women after the start of the pandemic. The findings showed a 74 percent increase compared to the prepandemic period among Hispanic women, and a 40.2 percent increase among Black women.
3. COVID-19 was listed as a secondary cause of death in 14.9 percent of maternal deaths from April through December 2020. None of the maternal deaths was solely attributed to COVID-19.
“Changes in maternal deaths during the pandemic may involve conditions directly related to COVID-19 (respiratory or viral infection) or conditions exacerbated by COVID-19 or other healthcare disruptions (diabetes or cardiovascular disease) but could not be discerned from the data,” the researchers said.
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