TOPLINE:<\/h2>\n
Analysis of nearly 15 million births and 3.7 million abortions from 2018-2021 revealed pregnancy-related mortality is 45-70 times higher than abortion-related deaths, at least triple the previous ratio from 1998-2005 data.<\/p>\n
METHODOLOGY:<\/h2>\n\n- A cross-sectional analysis included all births and pregnancy-related deaths from the National Vital Statistics System between 2018 and 2021, with abortion-related deaths obtained from the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System.<\/li>\n
- Data encompassed 14,902,571 births and 3,662,580 abortions during the study period.<\/li>\n
- Pregnancy-related mortality was defined as death during pregnancy or within 1 year of pregnancy termination, identified using International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision codes A34, 000-095, 096, and 098-099.<\/li>\n
- Researchers calculated pregnancy-related and abortion-related mortality ratios per 100,000 births and abortions, respectively.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
TAKEAWAY:<\/h2>\n\n- During 2018-2021, analysis of 14,902,571 births and 3,662,580 abortions revealed a mean ratio between pregnancy-related and abortion-related mortality of 69.6 (range, 52.9-105.2).<\/li>\n
- After excluding nonspecific causes of pregnancy-related death, the mortality ratio was 52.9 (range, 38.2-74.2).<\/li>\n
- Further analysis excluding COVID-related mortality showed a mortality ratio of 44.3 (range, 34.5-74.2), indicating at least a threefold increase from the previous ratio of 14.7 calculated using 1998-2005 data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
IN PRACTICE:<\/h2>\n
\u201cWe found that the risk of mortality from ongoing pregnancy was far greater than the risk associated with induced abortion in 2018 to 2021. Our estimate was at least three times higher than the previous estimate published in 2012,\u201d the authors of the study wrote. They added, \u201cSome policy and academic experts have argued that abortion bans themselves will increase pregnancy-related mortality by denying some people abortion care, therefore exposing them to increased health risks from ongoing pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n
SOURCE:<\/h2>\n
The study was led by Maria W. Steenland, SD, Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, University of Maryland in College Park. It was published online on January 21 in JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\nLIMITATIONS:<\/h2>\n
Researchers could only analyze data from 2018-2021 because the pregnancy checkbox was not implemented in all states until 2018, and 2021 was the most recent year with available abortion-related mortality data from the CDC. The study period does not capture post-Dobbs decision impacts. Due to the rarity of abortion-related deaths (two to six deaths annually), small variations in death numbers caused significant fluctuations in mortality rates. Additionally, no complete US data source exists for annual pregnancy counts, limiting pregnancy-related mortality calculations to using births rather than total pregnancies as the denominator.<\/p>\n
DISCLOSURES:<\/h2>\n
Benjamin P. Brown, MD, reported serving on boards of directors for Physicians for Reproductive Health and The Womxn Project Education Fund and on the national medical committee for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. No other disclosures were reported.<\/p>\n
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOPLINE: Analysis of nearly 15 million births and 3.7 million abortions from 2018-2021 revealed pregnancy-related mortality is 45-70 times higher than abortion-related deaths, at least triple the previous ratio from 1998-2005 data. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional analysis included all births and pregnancy-related deaths from the National Vital Statistics System between 2018 and 2021, with abortion-related deaths […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/is_230817_pregnant_doctor_depressed_800x450.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
TAKEAWAY:<\/h2>\n\n- During 2018-2021, analysis of 14,902,571 births and 3,662,580 abortions revealed a mean ratio between pregnancy-related and abortion-related mortality of 69.6 (range, 52.9-105.2).<\/li>\n
- After excluding nonspecific causes of pregnancy-related death, the mortality ratio was 52.9 (range, 38.2-74.2).<\/li>\n
- Further analysis excluding COVID-related mortality showed a mortality ratio of 44.3 (range, 34.5-74.2), indicating at least a threefold increase from the previous ratio of 14.7 calculated using 1998-2005 data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
IN PRACTICE:<\/h2>\n
\u201cWe found that the risk of mortality from ongoing pregnancy was far greater than the risk associated with induced abortion in 2018 to 2021. Our estimate was at least three times higher than the previous estimate published in 2012,\u201d the authors of the study wrote. They added, \u201cSome policy and academic experts have argued that abortion bans themselves will increase pregnancy-related mortality by denying some people abortion care, therefore exposing them to increased health risks from ongoing pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n
SOURCE:<\/h2>\n
The study was led by Maria W. Steenland, SD, Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, University of Maryland in College Park. It was published online on January 21 in JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\nLIMITATIONS:<\/h2>\n
Researchers could only analyze data from 2018-2021 because the pregnancy checkbox was not implemented in all states until 2018, and 2021 was the most recent year with available abortion-related mortality data from the CDC. The study period does not capture post-Dobbs decision impacts. Due to the rarity of abortion-related deaths (two to six deaths annually), small variations in death numbers caused significant fluctuations in mortality rates. Additionally, no complete US data source exists for annual pregnancy counts, limiting pregnancy-related mortality calculations to using births rather than total pregnancies as the denominator.<\/p>\n
DISCLOSURES:<\/h2>\n
Benjamin P. Brown, MD, reported serving on boards of directors for Physicians for Reproductive Health and The Womxn Project Education Fund and on the national medical committee for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. No other disclosures were reported.<\/p>\n
This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOPLINE: Analysis of nearly 15 million births and 3.7 million abortions from 2018-2021 revealed pregnancy-related mortality is 45-70 times higher than abortion-related deaths, at least triple the previous ratio from 1998-2005 data. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional analysis included all births and pregnancy-related deaths from the National Vital Statistics System between 2018 and 2021, with abortion-related deaths […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/is_230817_pregnant_doctor_depressed_800x450.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
IN PRACTICE:<\/h2>\n
\u201cWe found that the risk of mortality from ongoing pregnancy was far greater than the risk associated with induced abortion in 2018 to 2021. Our estimate was at least three times higher than the previous estimate published in 2012,\u201d the authors of the study wrote. They added, \u201cSome policy and academic experts have argued that abortion bans themselves will increase pregnancy-related mortality by denying some people abortion care, therefore exposing them to increased health risks from ongoing pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n
SOURCE:<\/h2>\n
The study was led by Maria W. Steenland, SD, Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, University of Maryland in College Park. It was published online on January 21 in JAMA Network Open<\/em>.<\/p>\n Researchers could only analyze data from 2018-2021 because the pregnancy checkbox was not implemented in all states until 2018, and 2021 was the most recent year with available abortion-related mortality data from the CDC. The study period does not capture post-Dobbs decision impacts. Due to the rarity of abortion-related deaths (two to six deaths annually), small variations in death numbers caused significant fluctuations in mortality rates. Additionally, no complete US data source exists for annual pregnancy counts, limiting pregnancy-related mortality calculations to using births rather than total pregnancies as the denominator.<\/p>\n Benjamin P. Brown, MD, reported serving on boards of directors for Physicians for Reproductive Health and The Womxn Project Education Fund and on the national medical committee for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. No other disclosures were reported.<\/p>\n This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n TOPLINE: Analysis of nearly 15 million births and 3.7 million abortions from 2018-2021 revealed pregnancy-related mortality is 45-70 times higher than abortion-related deaths, at least triple the previous ratio from 1998-2005 data. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional analysis included all births and pregnancy-related deaths from the National Vital Statistics System between 2018 and 2021, with abortion-related deaths […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/is_230817_pregnant_doctor_depressed_800x450.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}LIMITATIONS:<\/h2>\n
DISCLOSURES:<\/h2>\n
\n
<<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"