Black moms are more likely to die in childbirth. Will Congress do anything about it?

Lawmakers pushing to address the nation’s rising maternal death rate — particularly among Black women — heard testimony Thursday on what Congress can do to address the problem
The rate of pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. is the worst of any industrialized country, and the number of such deaths has steadily risen over the last 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. was 20.1 per 100,000 live births, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

But wide racial and ethnic disparities exist. The rate for Black women was 44 deaths per 100,000 live births, for non-Hispanic white women it was 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, and for Hispanic women it was 12.6 deaths per 100,000 live births.