Maternal mortality is a key indicator of health worldwide and reflects the ability of women to secure not only maternal health care services but also other health care services. The maternal mortality ratio in the United States is 13.1 deaths per 100,000 live births, with Black women facing a much higher risk than White women of dying from pregnancy-related conditions. According to World Health Organization estimates, over 20 countries have lower maternal mortality levels than the United States.(1)
What is the maternal mortality rate?
The Report Card benchmark is the Healthy People 2010 goal of reducing the maternal mortality rate to no more than 3.3 per 100,000 live births [Healthy People 2010 Objective 16-4].
Data Source: Maternal Mortality Rate (per 100,000 live born infants), 1999-2004
EXPLANATION:
Maternal mortality data are from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, and the data have been aggregated to include data from 1999 through 2004. Aggregation is necessary to control for the unreliability of the small values. For 22 states, the number of maternal deaths over the period from 1999 through 2004 is less than 20. The maternal mortality ratio is not based on the total population, but rather on deaths per 100,000 live-born infants. Note, however, that the numerator includes some maternal deaths that were not related to live-born infants and thus were not included in the denominator. Starting with 1999 mortality data, ICD-10 codes and classification were used for maternal deaths.
SOURCE:
National Center for Health Statistics, "Compressed Mortality File 1999-2004," CDC WONDER On-line Database, compiled from Compressed Mortality File 1999-2004 Series 20 No. 2J, 2007, available at http://wonder.cdc.gov/cmf-icd10.html, analyzed by Quality Resource Systems, Inc. Data for live births from 1999 through 2002 also come from the CDC Wonder on-line site. National Center for Health Statistics, Division of Vital Statistics, "Natality public-use data 1995-2002," on CDC WONDER On-line Database, November 2005, available at http://wonder.cdc.gov/natality.html, analyzed by Quality Resource Systems, Inc. The 2003 live birth data come from Joyce A. Martin and others., "Births: Final data for 2003," National Vital Statistics Reports 54 (2005). The 2004 live birth data come from Joyce A. Martin and others, "Births: Final data for 2004," National Vital Statistics Reports 55 (2006).