Changing the world now

I travel extensively as part of the United Nations, seeing the best and worst in the world, analyzing the data and advising the decision makers that impact people's lives. This blog contains my visions for improving the US and the world

Thursday, April 15, 2010

US Mothers Dying During Pregnancy More Often Now Than in 2000!


The Lancet has just released news that the global maternal mortality has declined - these results are controversial in that other estimates don't agree. I am not going to discuss the controversy surrounding the data as the debates focus on developing countries, not developed countries like the US and Western Europe

One area that struck me was the US maternal mortality rate. This is the chances of a women dying due to pregnancy.

The US always did poorly compared to the rest of the developed world...but the news is getting worse. According to the Lancet article, the US maternal mortality was 13 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 (confidence interval 12-15) but in 2008 had RISEN to 17 deaths per 100,000 live births. To put that in context, this rate is more than twice the estimate for Canada, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore and 21 of the 22 Western European countries.

The United States’ poor results in maternal mortality rates are likely tied to its having the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the developed world. In 1998 there were 1,671 births per 1,000,000 capita compared with less than 700 births per 1,000,000 capita for the other countries listed. Why does this matter? Pregnant teenagers and their infants face significantly greater health risk than pregnancy women in their 20’s; this includes a maternal mortality rate of five times higher in the developing world .

Image taken from The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 12 April 2010


Maternal mortality for 181 countries, 1980—2008: a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5. Margaret C Hogan MSc a b, Kyle J Foreman AB a, Mohsen Naghavi MD a, Stephanie Y Ahn BA a, Mengru Wang BA a, Susanna M Makela BS a, Prof Alan D Lopez PhD c, Prof Rafael Lozano MD a, Prof Christopher JL Murray MD

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