Causes not related to pregnancy accounted for more than half of the women's deaths in 2020, the researchers say.
Accidental drug poisoning was the most common, followed by motor vehicle collisions and homicide, with mortality rates of 12.2%, 5.9% and 5.5%, respectively. The mortality rate involving suicide did not significantly change.
"One of the main messages, I think, from this is really that there's a much bigger societal problem facing pregnant women and new mothers who are in that postpartum period where, you know, that's a very stressful time of life. What this points to is that there's particular vulnerability in this population to some of these other social factors," said Jeffrey Howard, an author of the study and associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
The findings can be largely attributed to the stressors brought on by the pandemic, he said. Rebecca Lawn, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, agrees. Experts say that addressing substance use during and after pregnancy is also critical as death from opioid overdose among pregnant and postpartum women has increased in recent years, mirroring trends in the general population.
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