Failure to rescue a major driver of excess maternal mortality in Black women

In a study of over 73 million delivery hospitalizations during a 19-year period in the United States, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center found that failure to rescue from severe maternal morbidity contributes more than a half of the 3-fold difference in maternal mortality between Black women and White women. Failure to rescue refers to death resulting from severe maternal morbidity such as eclampsia, acute heart failure, and sepsis. The findings are published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.