Researchers said this finding is critical because women with cardiac disease are at 14 times higher risk of developing severe maternal morbidity. The report found that women in mostly Black communities have up to twice the prevalence of risk factors for severe maternal morbidity - like diabetes, hypertension and anemia - than women in mostly white communities.īlack women in the Philly region have a higher prevalence of cardiac diseases than white women – 2.4 per 100 compared to 1.5 per 100. They include kidney failure, sepsis, shock and eclampsia, a serious complication of preeclampsia when women has seizures that may result in brain damage or coma. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers indicators for severe maternal morbidity. The Blue Cross Blue Shield report examined the 21 childbirth complications that the U.S.
Black women made up 73% of deaths from 2013 to 2018 despite accounting for just 43% of overall births. The study comes two months after the city's Maternal Mortality Review Committee released data showing Black women in Philadelphia are four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes.