NEW YORK (AP) — Fewer U.S. women died around the time of childbirth in 2024, a government analysis shows, and provisional data suggests the trend may have continued last year.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday reported that 649 mothers died in 2024 during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. That is down from 669 deaths in 2023, and a continued drop from 2022 and 2021 — when it was the highest level in more than 50 years.
Available preliminary data suggests the trend continued in 2025, said Eugene Declercq, a Boston University researcher who studies federal data.
But he warned that there can be changes between the provisional and final numbers, with the tally either rising as late death records arrive or falling as some initials reports are removed upon review because they do not meet inclusion guidelines. That happened with the 2024 numbers, which at the provisional stage were higher than the 2023 count.
“All you could reasonably say is that the provisional 2025 data look promising,” Declercq said in an email.
The CDC counts women who die while pregnant, during childbirth and up to 42 days after birth from conditions related to pregnancy. Excessive bleeding, blood vessel blockages and infections are leading causes. The new report did not detail how many of the 2024 deaths died from particular causes.
Maternal deaths spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic because the coronavirus was particularly dangerous to pregnant women and burned-out physicians may have ignored pregnant women’s worries.
The waning of COVID-19 was a major reason for the declines in deaths since 2021, Declercq said. Some of the improvement may also reflect successful efforts to improve care, he added.
The new CDC report found that the maternal mortality rate in 2024 was about 18 deaths per 100,000 live births, which was not significantly lower than the year before.
“The declines are welcome, but they are small and only bring us back to where we were six years ago” before the COVID-19 surge, Declercq said, adding there is a need for more attention to the problem.
The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rate among wealthy nations. Past research has found wide racial disparities in such deaths, with Black women dying at a far higher rate than white women.
The new report found the Black maternal death rate in 2024 was more than three times that of the white and Hispanic rates. It also showed that the death rate for women age 40 and older was more than three times greater than it was for younger women.
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FILE - A pregnant woman stands for a portrait in Dallas, May 18, 2023. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
