Maternal Mortality

Key Findings
- For 2018, the maternal mortality rate is 17.4 per 100,000 live births in the United States.
- Wide racial and ethnic gaps exist between non-Hispanic black (37.3 deaths per 100,000 live births), non-Hispanic white (14.9), and Hispanic (11.8) women.
- New coding procedures—including how to use a checkbox that helps identify deaths related to pregnancy—improve the accuracy of maternal mortality estimates.
Page last reviewed: November 9, 2020
Content source: National Center for Health Statistics