Trends and Disparities in Cardiovascular-Related Maternal Mortality in the United States: 1999-2022

“Part of the reason this is happening is because heart disease and hypertension are becoming more and more prevalent, as are the conditions that are connected to heart disease, like diabetes and obesity. As a result, we wind up with more high-risk pregnancies. However, a lot of this is preventable. If a patient has a history of hypertension or other preexisting cardiovascular disease, that patient should be connected with a high-risk obstetrics clinic to receive the care they need.”

“While the addition of the pregnancy checkbox on death certificates complicates the comparison of maternal mortality pre- and post-2018, what remains certain is that maternal deaths due to cardiovascular causes remain unacceptably high.”