THE US maternal mortality rate surged in 2021, the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, with black women more than twice as likely to die than white women, according to a report released on Thursday.
A total of 1,205 women died in the United States during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth in 2021, up from 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) said.