US has the highest rate of maternal deaths among high-income nations. Norway has zero

The United States continues to have a higher rate of women dying in pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum compared with all other high-income nations, even despite recent declines in the US maternal death rate, a new report shows.

The United States continues to have a higher rate of women dying in pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum compared with all other high-income nations, even despite recent declines in the US maternal death rate, a new report shows. There were about 22 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in the United States in 2022, the most recent year for which data was available. That rate was more than double, sometimes triple, those seen in most other high-income countries that year, according to the report released Tuesday by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on health care-related issues. And the rate of maternal deaths among Black women in the United States remains even higher, at nearly 50 deaths per 100,000 live births, the new report shows. Meanwhile, half of the high-income nations in the new report had fewer than 5 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, and one country recorded zero maternal deaths: Norway. Unlike Norway and some other peer nations, “the US has a maternal care workforce shortage problem, which is only supposed to get worse,” said Munira Gunja, lead author of the report and senior researcher at the International Program in Health Policy and Practice Innovations at the Commonwealth Fund. In the United States, she noted, there is limited access to midwives, who provide support to a patient from the prenatal period through postpartum.