(Mirror Daily, United States) Being a mom is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to a woman. Perhaps some of them might disagree as motherhood has its rough parts too. Scientists come with new statistics showing that pregnant women are exposed to higher risks than before, death included.
A new study found that the mortality rate for pregnant women has alarmingly increased. Comparing the results to the ones at the beginning of the century, the number is much bigger. The new study is based on data and observations gathered between 2000 and 2014.
Doctors are still trying to figure out an answer to the question why motherhood is so dangerous. They explain that the reason behind dying at giving birth might be that women nowadays tend to get pregnant at older ages than they used to. This action has consequences on both the mother and the baby because the mother might be already suffering from blood pressure or diabetes, which can lead to severe complications with the pregnancy.
Health Day provides information with respect to the number of deaths, via Obstetrics & Gynecology:
“For every 100,000 live births, nearly 24 women died during, or within 42 days after pregnancy in 2014. That was up from nearly 19 per 100,000 in 2000.”
Sadly, in the United States, the phenomenon is to be encountered more often than expected for modern times because the States don’t stand in a good position regarding the top of countries with high death rate for pregnant women.
The study was carried out by a team, lead by Marian MacDorman (University of Maryland). She encourages women not to be worried because, although the rates are increasing, the actual chances of dying are rather small:
“Certainly, maternal death is still a rare event. But it’s of great concern that the rate is not improving — it’s increasing.”
She further added:
“Our study couldn’t get into the causes of death. We were just trying to get at the numbers.”
Nevertheless, there is good news coming from California: here, the death rates of pregnant women are decreasing.
The point of the study was not to scare women even more at the idea of motherhood, but to have some real numbers on the worse scenario that can ever happen to a pregnant woman.
Image courtesy of: Flickr