Maria Steenland, University of Maryland - Stark Mortality Difference Between Pregnancy and Abortion

There are stark mortality differences between pregnancy and abortion.Maria Steenland, assistant professor of family science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, explores this.Faculty Bio:Dr. Steenland is an Assistant Professor in Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is a health services and health policy researcher focused on maternal and reproductive health policy in the United States. Her research useseconometric methods to evaluate maternal and reproductive health programs and policies, with a particular focus on Medicaid policy. The overarching goal of her research is to identify policy options to increase the equity and quality of women’s health services. Her previous researchhas examined the effect of Medicaid payment policies for immediate postpartum contraception, and expansions of Medicaid eligibility in pregnant and postpartum populations.Transcript:After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June of 2022, some advocates and academics expressed concern that abortion bans would harm maternal health. They argued that banning abortion could increase maternal mortality in part because the risk of death from childbirth is much higher than the risk from abortion. Continuing a pregnancy places significant physiologic stress on the body, which can lead to life-threatening complications, such as hemorrhage, sepsis, stroke, and heart failure. A prior study, using data from 1998 through 2005, found that the risk of death from childbirth was about 14 times greater than the risk of death from abortion. In the years since that estimate, the measurement of maternal death has improved, increasing the number of pregnancy-related deaths identified annually. At the same time, abortions are taking place earlier in pregnancy, reducing the risk of complications. Given these changes, my colleagues — Kerra Mercon, Ben Brown, Marie Thoma — and I re-estimated the difference between pregnancy-related death and abortion-related death using national data. Using figures from 2018 to 2021, we calculated a range of mortality ratios. We found that the risk of death from ongoing pregnancy was 44 to 70 times greater than the risk of death from abortion. Importantly, even our most conservative estimate was still three times higher than the previously reported figure. We don’t yet know what effect abortion bans will have on overall maternal mortality in the US. However, we can say that people who are forced to continue their pregnancies because of abortion bans will face a dramatically greater risk of death than had they been able to access an abortion.Read More:[University of Maryland School of Public Health] - Study: Risk of maternal death during pregnancy greatly exceeds risk of death from abortion This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.academicminute.org