Maternal mortalities in the early months of the pandemic could have come directly from the virus or the burdens it placed on the healthcare system.
Pregnancy puts an immense medical strain on the human body—American mothers can attest to that. Thereport from the National Center for Health Statistics
The researchers combined the first three months of 2020 with other years to make the data more stable, and found that the rates of maternal death during those pre-pandemic months were more similar to the earlier, pre-COVID years. Racial disparities were also made evident in the data, with COVID listed as a secondary cause of death for 32 percent of Hispanic, 12.9 percent of Black, and 7 percent of non-Hispanic white women giving birth. This is compared to 15 percent of all maternal deaths that listed COVID as a contributing factor.