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The National Center for Health Statistics’ published provisional monthly estimates of maternal death (12-month ending counts) appear to demonstrate that the end of federal protection for abortion rights in June 2022 was associated with an immediate and dramatic decline in maternal deaths. In this research note we investigate this apparent association by comparing the 12-month ending counts with monthly counts of maternal death. We decompose change in the 12-month ending counts into change due to months leaving the sum and change due to the current month entering the sum and conclude that the rapid decline in the 12-month ending counts is driven by events in 2021, specifically the shock to maternal deaths during the Delta and Omicron waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. Actual monthly final and provisional maternal deaths from the National Vital Statistics Surveillance System did not decline after June 2022. We caution that any analysis of change in maternal deaths should exercise extreme caution when using summed measures in general and the 12-month ending counts in particular.
Stevenson et al. (Sat,) studied this question.