The rise in reported maternal mortality rates in the US is largely due to a change in measurement
This rise has been widely covered in the media. See a 2023 article on Scientific American: “Why Maternal Mortality Rates Are Getting Worse across the U.S.” Or a report on National Public Radio (NPR): “The number of people dying in the U.S. from pregnancy-related causes has more than doubled in the last 20 years.” It has, understandably, been a big concern among the public.
But researchers have shown that this rise does not represent an actual increase in the number of women dying in childbirth. Rather, it is the result of a change in measurement that was gradually introduced in the US between 2003 and 2017.
This change wasn’t adopted at a national level in a single moment; that would have led to a single step-wise change in mortality rates. Instead, the measurement change was adopted state by state, which led to a gradual rise over 14 years.
This measurement change has helped to identify more deaths that meet the criteria for maternal deaths, but has also led to some misclassification.
