The U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Surged by Nearly 20% in 2020
“Maternal mortality rates in 2020 increased across all age and racial groups in the report, with the overall surge fueled heavily by a spike in the rates for both Hispanic and Black women. Black women had the highest maternal mortality rate of the three racial or ethnic groups included in the report, at 55.3 deaths for every 100,000 live births. That rate was nearly three times higher than the 19.1 deaths per 100,000 births among white women – a larger disparity than in 2019 – and more than three times higher than the rate of 18.2 deaths per 100,000 among Hispanic women.
Yet the maternal death rate among Hispanic women saw the largest increase from 2019 to 2020, rising by 44% over that year compared with increases of 26% among Black women and 7% among white women.”