U.S. ranks worst on maternal care
- Analysis published in AJMC found the United States ranked worst for maternal care among 11 developed countries. (ajmc.com) - The report links poor outcomes to understaffing, weak postpartum supports, and lack of guaranteed provider home visits. (ajmc.com) - The finding reinforces workforce and continuity gaps as structural drivers of maternal mortality in high-income settings. (ajmc.com)
The United States still has the worst maternal mortality record among high-income peers, even after its rate fell from the pandemic spike. (commonwealthfund.org) The Commonwealth Fund’s June 4, 2024 comparison looked at the U.S. alongside 13 other high-income countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland. It put the U.S. at 22.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, versus about 14 in New Zealand and Chile, 8 in Canada, 5.5 in the United Kingdom, and 1 in Switzerland. (commonwealthfund.org) The report did not stop at death rates. It also compared staffing, postpartum care, and family supports, and found the U.S. had the fewest midwives and obstetrician-gynecologists per birth among the countries studied. (commonwealthfund.org) Among the countries in the analysis, the U.S. was the only one without guaranteed access to provider home visits after birth and the only one without federally mandated paid maternity, parental, or home-care leave. (commonwealthfund.org) That comparison landed as the latest federal figures showed the U.S. maternal mortality rate at 18.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023 and 17.9 in 2024, changes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said were not a statistically significant decline from 2023 to 2024. (cdc.gov 1) (cdc.gov 2) The federal count also shows how uneven the burden is. In 2024, Black women had a maternal mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with 14.5 for White women and 12.4 for Hispanic women. (cdc.gov) Researchers and clinicians have pointed repeatedly to the same pressure points: too few maternity care workers, weak follow-up after delivery, and gaps in coverage during the weeks and months when many deaths occur. The American Journal of Managed Care’s coverage of the comparison highlighted those workforce and continuity failures as central findings. (ajmc.com) The U.S. also measures maternal death more completely than some peers, and cross-country comparisons can be affected by how deaths are recorded. The Commonwealth Fund said the gap remains large even with that caveat and pointed to stronger postpartum systems abroad, including home visits and paid leave, as differences that show up across countries. (commonwealthfund.org) The ranking has not moved because one year improved. The latest U.S. numbers are lower than 2022, but the country still sits far above other rich nations on the measures the comparison used. (cdc.gov) (commonwealthfund.org)
