Black, Asian and Indigenous mothers delivering twins or triplets are the most likely to give birth in intensive care units with higher health risks, according to new federal data released Thursday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the rate of White mothers admitted to ICUs for difficult childbirths from 2020 through 2022 was 1.5 for every 1,000 live births — lower than the rates for other racial groups and those who gave birth to multiple children. Rates also increased with the age of the mother, the federal agency found.
The report is the first time the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics has analyzed national data on the demographics of moms admitted to hospital ICUs. Officials said complete national data on ICU admissions only became available in 2016.
“This report finds that demographic factors may place a mother at higher risk of intensive care admission around the time of delivery,” Isabelle Horon, a CDC statistician and author of the report, told The Washington Times. “Awareness of both the demographic and medical factors associated with intensive care admission may help to ensure that pregnant women have access to the appropriate level of specialty care.”
While relatively few women deliver children in hospital ICUs, Ms. Horon said admitted mothers and their newborns have a higher risk of dying or developing severe short- and long-term health problems.
According to the CDC, the overall rate of ICU admissions for mothers delivering live-born infants in 2020–2022 was 1.8 per 1,000 live births or an average of 6,634 per year. That was up slightly from an annual average of 6,456 admissions during the previous three-year period from 2017 to 2019.
American Indian and Alaska Native mothers had the highest ICU admission rate from 2020 to 2022, 2.7 for every 1,000 live births. The next-highest were 2.6 for Black mothers, 2.5 for Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander mothers and 2.1 for Asian mothers.
The rate for Hispanic mothers, 1.7, was only slightly higher than the rate for White mothers.
Other key findings include:
• In birth order, ICU admission rates increased from 1.6 per 1,000 births for mothers delivering their second infant to a high of 6.5 for mothers with 6 or more previous live births.
• Admission rates ranged from 1.7 per 1,000 live births for mothers delivering single infants to 5.3 for mothers having twins and 11.5 for mothers delivering triplets, quadruplets or more.
• The rates also rose with increasing maternal age, from 1.4 per 1000 live births for mothers younger than 25 to 6.5 for mothers age 45 and older.
The CDC findings likely underestimate ICU admissions due to their reliance on birth certificates rather than hospital records, said Alison Gemmill, a perinatal epidemiologist teaching at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
She said the report nevertheless confirms other research showing that “people from disadvantaged groups tend to do worse” in childbirth because of limited access to high-quality health care and traumatic childhood experiences that increase their risks for pregnancy complications.
“Black mothers at advanced maternal ages have some of the worst maternal outcomes out of any demographic group,” Ms. Gemmill told The Times. “Asian women are more likely to give birth at older ages than other racial [or] ethnic groups.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.