Wanda Irving holds her granddaughter, Soleil, in front of a portrait of Soleil’s mother, Shalon Irving, at her home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in 2017. Wanda has been raising Soleil since Shalon died of complications from high blood pressure a few weeks after giving birth.
Becky Harlan/NPR
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Becky Harlan/NPR
Wanda Irving holds her granddaughter, Soleil, in front of a portrait of Soleil’s mother, Shalon Irving, at her home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, in 2017. Wanda has been raising Soleil since Shalon died of complications from high blood pressure a few weeks after giving birth.
Becky Harlan/NPR
In 2021, the United States had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country’s history, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report found that 1,205 people died of maternal causes in the United States in 2021. This represents a 40% increase from the previous year.
These are deaths occurring during pregnancy or within 42 days of delivery, depending on the World Health Organization.
The US rate for 2021 was 32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, more than ten times the estimated rates of some other high-income countriesincluding Australia, Austria, Israel, Japan and Spain which all hovered between 2 and 3 deaths per 100,000 in 2020.
According World Health Organization datan, the maternal mortality rate in all high-income countries was 12 per 100,000 live births in 2020, while in low-income countries it was 430 per 100,000.
International comparisons of maternal deaths are difficult because of methodological differences in tracking the data, warns the author of the new US report, Donna Hoyert, a health scientist at the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC. But, she notes, the United States “generally doesn’t do very well” when it comes to maternal mortality.
“There is simply no reason for a wealthy country to have low maternal mortality,” says Eileen Criminals, professor of gerontology at the University of Southern California. The CDCs latest data compilation state committees that review these deaths have found that 84% of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States are preventable.
The increase in maternal mortality in 2021 was “generally observed across different age groups and racial and Hispanic groups,” says Hoyert.
She links the increase in maternal deaths to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had a warning with the increase between 2019 and 2020 that it looked like maternal mortality rates were increasing during this time of the pandemic,” she says. “With the total number of COVID deaths occurring in 2021, there has been a shift towards younger people, so those would be in the age groups where people would be more likely to be pregnant or recently pregnant. ”
She says provisional data suggests deaths peaked in 2021 and started to decline last year. “So hopefully that’s the top,” Hoyert says.
Still, some experts worry that other trends across the country will make those numbers worse, not better, including abortion restrictions that cdelayed management of pregnancy complicationsand staffing problems in hospitals and closures of rural maternities.
The maternal mortality rate among black Americans is much higher than that of other racial groups; in 2021, it was 69.9 per 100,000, 2.6 times higher than the rate for white women.
Dr. Veronica Gillispie-Bell, an OB-GYN at Ochsner Health in Louisiana who works with the state health department to investigate maternal deaths, says social, not biological, factors fuel the racial gap. “We need to address the social factors that are either barriers to accessing care or worsen your health early in pregnancy,” she says. “It’s not just about doctors in the hospital.”
Louisiana is one of group of states work with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve health system processes to prevent maternal deaths and reduce racial disparities. Gillispie-Bell says she’s optimistic the efforts will pay off, but “it’s not something that happens overnight. It’s going to be a while before we see the benefits of this change.”
Change cannot come soon enough for the families whose lives are affected. Wanda Irving’s daughter died of high blood pressure just three weeks after giving birth to a baby girl in 2017. Irving, who spoken to NPR in the past about his daughter, now runs an organization called Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project raise awareness of the risks for black mothers in particular.
Irving’s daughter, Shalon Irvingwas an accomplished scientist, working as an epidemiologist at the CDC in Atlanta.
Wanda Irving cries as she recalls her daughter’s final weeks. “She had gained 9 pounds in the last week. She had a headache. One leg was bigger than the other and she said, ‘There’s something seriously wrong, can you please please check. “
But she continued to be sent home from hospital even though she insisted she needed medical attention. About three weeks after giving birth, she collapsed at home and never woke up.
Wanda Irving says her daughter’s death was preventable – she blames it on racism within the healthcare system, doctors ignoring her daughter’s symptoms and health risks.
Irving now lives in his daughter’s home and raises his granddaughter, who is now 6 and bright, but is struggling with her loss.
“There are days when she completely loses her mind and she breaks down and she’s in tears,” Irving says, saying her granddaughter will explain why she’s crying by saying, “I want my mommy.” Can I die to go see my mom? “
Irving is working to raise awareness of the maternal death toll, she says, because she doesn’t want another little girl or boy to grow up without their mother’s love.
“People need to understand the enormous devastation caused by maternal mortality and the loss to society as well as to families,” she says.
