Arizona state university.
>> The centers for disease
control and prevention released
two new disturbing reports about
mortality rates for mothers and
babies in America, including
some stark racial divides.
William brangham explores these
alarming trends.
>> We are going to hear from two
of the researchers behind the
A look at maternal mortality.
New mothers are dying here at
higher rates than mothers in any
other industrialized nation.
During the pandemic, that has
gotten worse.
In 2018, an average of 17
mothers died for every 100,000
births in America.
By 2021, it shot up to almost
33,000 mothers per hundred
thousand.
The trend was far worse for
black mothers.
More than doubled the national
average.
Almost 70 deaths per 100,000
births.
Shawna Coxe is the associate
director for science and
reproductive health at the CDC.
Thank you for being here.
Help us understand what you
found here.
Maternal mortality has been bad
in America, but got really bad
during the pandemic.
What stood out to you?
>> What we know is too many
women die from pregnancy-related
complications each year.
It increases -- Roy treasure.
We also saw the increased risk
of severe illness from covid-19.
That contributed to some of the
increases that we have seen.
We also know there increases in
maternal age, chronic
conditions, such as
hypertension, as well as social
determinants of health, such as
economic security and housing
security.
All of these factors contributed
to what we are seeing in
increases in internal deaths.
>> The data is indicating it was
some of the social and health
factors brought on by the
pandemic.
We are not talking about the
fireball deaths, we are talking
about the related things people
suffered through during the
pandemic?
>> Yes.
We have to think about all of
those things.
This data highlights the
numbers.
It is a canary in the coal mine
letting us know this is
something we need to pay much
more attention to and understand
the contributing factors.
While we can't pinpoint one
thing that is driving this
increase, we can't understand
the factors that were occurring
at this time that may have
contributed to this increase.
>> Can I ask you specifically
about these very stark numbers
for black mothers in America?
In 2018, they were still ahead
of the overall trend for all
American moms.
But that trend may continue and
seem to worsen.
Why do you believe that is the
case?
>> There are long-standing
disparities in pregnancy-related
deaths between non-hispanic,
black, and non-hispanic white
women.
There are many factors
contribute into these
disparities.
There are variations, and the
quality of care received for the
facilities disproportionately
serving black women for both
black-and-white women.
We also know there are
disparities in those pregnancy
related complications, such as
hypertension.
Most importantly, we know the
social determinants of health
also differ by race, ethnicity.
We have to acknowledge
historical trauma and racism,
including structural racism,
plays a part in this
distribution of social
determinants of health and a
role in those disparities.
I also want to highlight these
factors not always protective
for black women.
Non-hispanic black women with a
college degree are more likely
to die from pregnancy related
complicationsthan non-hispanic
women with his good degree.
We know there is an experience
being black in America driving
these disparities.
>> We want to turn to the second
data set from the CDC about
infant mortality.
Specifically, any sudden
unexpected death of an infant.
The overall rate of infants
dying is at record lows.
During the first year of the
pandemic, the deaths of black
infants spiked.
The blue line second from the
top.
What do we know about why that
trend is occurring?
Shared parts brown is an
epidemiologist at the CDC.
Thank you for being here.
Similar question to you.
We had been making progress on
saving the lives of more young
people and keeping them alive
after they were born.
Then there was this sudden turn
during the pandemic.
Did that spike come as a
surprise to you?
>> Yes, it was absolutely a
surprise for us.
We were looking to compare rates
of sudden unexpected infant
rates prior to the covid-19
pandemic to the first year of
data after the covid-19 pandemic
began.
We did see the overall rate
between 2015 and 2020 did not
change.
But we saw a surprising increase
among non-hispanic black
infants.
>> The sewage rate, this is the
sudden unexplained infant death,
that is what you are referring
to?
>> Sudden unexpected infant
death.
>> Along with us being surprised
at the rate increase for
non-hispanic black infants, it
is important to point out the
racial disparities and the
pattern of those disparities had
been consistent from as far back
as 1995.
We typically saw the highest
rate of sudden unexpected infant
deaths among American Indian
alaskan native infants.
In 2020, that flipped so
non-hispanic black infants
actually had the highest rate of
sudden unexpected infant deaths,
followed by American Indian
alaskan native Indians.
>> Do you have a sense as to why
this sudden spike occurred?
>> Similar to what my colleague
stated about maternal mortality,
we don't have data at this point
to really explain why we
observed this spike in infant
mortality.
But we also believe there were
some indirect effects of the
covid-19 pandemic.
We know a lot of the mitigation
efforts disproportionately
affected racial and ethnic
minority communities compared to
non-hispanic white families.
Things like exasperation of
housing and security, food and
security unemployment, changes
in health care access, all of
those things could have impacted
for instance.
Access to health -- childcare.
People who were not typically
caring for their babies were
responsible for taking care of
those infants.
We also saw changes related to
housing instability.
Families may have been exposed
to sleeping arrangements they
were not used to.
Where they normally may have
access to a safe sleeping
environment, may be due to
sudden unemployment associated
with the pandemic, without their
safe sleeping arrangement and
have been putting their children
in riskier sleep environments.
>> That is one of the possible
factors children might be
suffocation or something that we
have thought of in the past as
complicit in children suddenly
dying.
>> Yes.
We can be talking about infants
in their sleep environments.
Some of these babies, we don't
have evidence they have died of
suffocation.
Some of them may die for other
unexplained sudden reasons.
That they are more at risk for
them as a result of being in an
unsafe sleeping environment.
>> To this point about the
specificity of how it seems to
be among black infants, as
opposed to other lower
socioeconomic or racial
minorities in America, how do
you explain that trend?
>> This is one year of data.
We are going to continue
monitoring to see if the spike
we observed in 2020 is just an
artifact in the data or if it is
something that is actually
sustained.
And also try to use our other
data sources like unexpected
infant death at CDC that has a
lot of rich data and social
determinants to really tease out
what the factors were that could
have been driving to increase
what we have observed.
That is a question we continue
to monitor and do surveillance
and research.
>> Sharon parts brown, thank you
for being here.