Viral video claims it’s more dangerous to be pregnant now than 30 years ago. Is it true?

A YouTube short featuring a snippet from an interview has garnered tens of thousands of views, featuring a woman who claims it’s more dangerous to be pregnant now than it was in 1990. But is that true?

In the video, Ariana McGee, founder of Navigate Maternity, spoke about the dangers of pregnancy. “I was born in 1990,” she said. “It was safer for my mother to have me then than it was for me to have my daughter two years ago.”

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It is true that maternal mortality is a problem, particularly for Black women, who are at a much higher risk of pregnancy- or childbirth-related death. These deaths are often preventable, and the disparity between Black mothers and white mothers have only grown over the years.

But is it more dangerous for women to give birth now than it was 30 years ago?

On the surface, this at first appears to be true. The maternal mortality rate reported in 1990 was 8.0 deaths per 100,000 live births; in 2021, it was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. That seems to show a huge jump in deaths, which rightly would raise alarm and a need for investigation into what is causing the increase in deaths.

However, a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology recently found that a simple change in how maternal deaths were classified could have led to a massive over-classification. In 2003, a checkbox was added that asked if the deceased woman was pregnant or had just given birth at the time of death. This led to a recorded 143% increase in maternal mortality deaths since 1999. However, after reviewing the data, researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) found that maternal mortality deaths remained relatively stable, with just a 2% actual increase within that time period.

Dr. Michael New, associate scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, agrees, telling Live Action News, “Most of the reported increases have occurred because of changes in reporting standards. However, even if the maternal mortality rate has increased — maternal mortality rates are very low by historical standards.”

New said that the U.S. maternal mortality rate was “over 800 per 100,000 live births in 1900 and fell to 100 per by 1950 — a decline of more than 87%.” He noted that “this substantial decline took place when unborn children were legally protected” from abortion. “According to CDC numbers, the maternal mortality rate continued to decline during the 1950, 1960s, 1970s, and into the 1980s,” he added. “Between 1950 and 1987, the U.S. maternal mortality rate fell from 100 to 7.5 — another decline of more than 90%.”

This change in reporting, or over-classification, has made it appear that maternal mortality rates are rising in the United States, while they decline in similar developed countries. Improvements in data collection make it appears that there has been a drastic increase in the U.S. when there has not.

However, it should be noted that chronic medical conditions like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are becoming more common, and women are also having babies at increasingly older ages — all of which lead to more complications. The opioid epidemic has also been playing a role in maternal mortality. In addition, maternity care deserts in the U.S. are becoming a problem, and it has nothing to do with abortion; hospitals began shutting down maternity wards (often as cost-cutting, profit-increasing measures) long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, and this trend continues today. As birth rates decrease, hospitals located in less populous areas have begun making cuts to obstetric services.

Deaths from obstetrics-related causes, like hemorrhage or pre-eclampsia,  have decreased; however, deaths from indirect, pre-existing causes, like hypertension, increased. Researchers have suggested that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention improve the current maternal mortality classifications by requiring the reporting of the pregnancy-related cause of death.

Ultimately, however, while there are always improvements that can, and must, be made in the quality of maternity care women receive, it is likely not true that it is more dangerous to deliver a baby now than it was in 1990.

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