Women die giving birth in the United States at more than four times the rate of those in Italy and double the British rate, an 18-year study has found.
The maternal-mortality rate per 100,000 live births rose by 42 percent here from 1990 to 2008, Christopher Murray and colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle wrote in the medical journal The Lancet. They used surveys, census data and autopsy reports from 181 countries.
The US ratio increased from 12 in 1990 to 17 in 2008. Italy’s rate is the world’s lowest at 4, Afghanistan’s the highest — at 1,575.