Why Are So Many American Mothers Dying From Childbirth? | The Deep
The LOOPcast
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4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 16 April 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
Why is the U.S. maternal mortality rate the highest in the developed world? In this episode of The Deep, we break down shocking data on pregnancy deaths, C-section risks, postpartum care failures, and healthcare system incentives putting moms at risk. This is the maternal health crisis no one is explaining clearly.
0:00 Intro
1:26 Breaking down the statistics
6:54 A political problem
9:00 A broken system
16:27 Postpartum deaths
20:03 A twisted view of motherhood
22:05 Conclusion
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was recently shocked to discover that America's maternal mortality rate is the highest |
| 0:06.1 | in the developed world. |
| 0:08.0 | Our mothers are dying at rates 2 to 6 times higher than other G7 nations, even though |
| 0:15.0 | we spend far more on health care. |
| 0:18.0 | In the 1900s, the American maternal mortality rate was around 900 deaths per 100,000. |
| 0:25.4 | Today, it's about 18.4, so we are way ahead of Abigail Adams and Ma Angles. That feels like good |
| 0:34.0 | news, and it is until you look at other countries. The United States is not just |
| 0:40.3 | slightly worse for moms. When you look at the numbers, we have fallen significantly behind |
| 0:47.3 | in caring for new mothers. Australia, the UK, and Canada, they only see six to nine deaths per 100,000 births. Italy, Japan, and Germany are |
| 0:58.4 | consistently below five, and the Netherlands, Norway and New Zealand have fewer than three deaths |
| 1:05.4 | per 100,000 live births. All of that compared to 18.4? So why are outcomes for moms so bad in America, |
| 1:16.6 | the richest nation on earth? Why are our moms dying? And can we save them? |
| 1:26.6 | When we drill down further into the stats, we start to see that not only is our maternal mortality rate alarmingly high, but it also affects American women in wildly uneven ways. |
| 1:38.8 | One of the most striking stats, California, has 9.5 deaths per 100,000, enjoying near Canada-level outcomes. |
| 1:49.0 | Louisiana, meanwhile, reports around 42 deaths, making pregnancy about as risky there as you'd expect it to be for a woman in Brazil, Colombia, or Turkey. |
| 2:00.0 | Disparities are even more shocking as you break |
| 2:03.1 | deaths down by race and age. In August 2025, the CDC reported that Hispanic women enjoyed the |
| 2:11.0 | best mortality rate at just 11 deaths per 100,000 live births. Asians weren't far behind at 12.8, and white women died at a rate of |
| 2:21.4 | 14.2, still high for a G7 nation, but far better than rates for black mothers. They die at an |
| 2:30.2 | astonishing rate of 40.8 women per 100,000 live births. |
| 2:36.0 | If we sort deaths by maternal age, the disparities among groups are even greater. |
| 2:42.0 | Women under 25 have predictably the best outcomes, only about 9.7 die per 100,000 live births. |
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