Dangerous pregnancy outcomes doubled in Mass. over the last decade, DPH says

Despite the state boasting world renowned medical care availability and nation leading rates of health insurance coverage, Massachusetts is still struggling to combat some seriously dangerous medical outcomes associated with being pregnant and having a child.

According to a new report released by the Department of Public Health, the rate of maternal morbidity among pregnant patients in Massachusetts has soared in the last decade, especially among the state’s most vulnerable populations.

“The data show that the rate of severe maternal morbidity for all birthing people in the state nearly doubled during (a) ten year period,” DPH Commissioner Dr. Robert Goldstein told reporters. “The most troubling finding was that for Black, non-Hispanic birthing people the rate of severe maternal morbidity in 2011 was twice that of white non-Hispanic birthing people. But by 2020 it was two-and-a-half times higher.”

The report, An Assessment of Severe Maternal Morbidity in Massachusetts: 2011 to 2020, examined the health outcomes following more than 678,000 births occurring among more than 500,000 patients seen from 2011 to 2020. In that time, regardless of race, the rate of morbidity among pregnant patients went from 52.3 per 10,000 deliveries in 2011 to 100.4 per 10,000 deliveries in 2020.

According to the World Health Organization, maternal morbidity is “any health condition attributed to and/or complicating pregnancy, and childbirth that has a negative impact on the woman’s well-being and/or functioning.”

Maternal morbidity, according to DPH, can manifest as several life-threatening conditions, including heart attacks, acute kidney failure, eclampsia, and sepsis, and can require life-saving surgery.

Why those outcomes occur so frequently among non-white patients, according to the state’s Director of the Division of Maternal Child Health Research and Analysis at the Bureau of Family Health and Nutrition, is fairly clear.

“The problem is not race, but racism,” Dr. Fifi Diop said.

According to Gov. Maura Healey, the report demonstrates that Massachusetts does not have the opportunity to rest on its laurels when it comes to health and health care.

“Massachusetts has the best health care system in the country, but this report shows that there is much more work that we need to do to address racial and gender inequities in health care. It is essential that everyone has access to comprehensive, high-quality and inclusive maternal health care,” she said with the report’s release. “We can and must do better for mothers, for kids and for families – and our administration is committed to doing just that.”

The report also demonstrated that pregnant patients with disabilities face “significant inequities” when having children.

Through every 10,000 deliveries, there were 131.6 births complicated by severe maternal morbidity among mothers with intellectual disabilities. Those with a vision based disability saw 108.4 cases of morbidity per 10,000 births, and those with a mobility disability 94.6 per 10,000 births.