Virginia’s maternal mortality rate more than doubled between 2018 and 2020, according to preliminary data, prompting state officials to begin ground-level interviews to determine the cause of pregnancy-related deaths. rice field.

According to early figures from the Virginia Maternal Mortality Study team, In 2018, the state’s maternal mortality rate was 37.1 per 100,000. By 2020, that figure had risen to 86.6 deaths per 100,000 of her Dr. Ryan Diduk-Smith, director of the Chief Coroner’s Department of Death Prevention, said:.

Not all of these deaths are necessarily due to pregnancy problems, as the review team investigates all deaths that occur within 365 days of pregnancy. However, this surge points to a sharply rising trend in maternal mortality rates that is also seen in federal data.

Diduk-Smith said researchers still “have no clue” as to why the rate jumped sharply in 2020, but Shannon Pursell, director of operations for the Virginia Neonatal Perinatal Collaborative, said the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor. said intimate partner violence and isolation were on the rise. I was able to contribute to the leap. However, both stressed that the data are preliminary and that no final conclusions can be drawn until the review team has had the opportunity to investigate each case.

Virginia’s Maternal Mortality Research team is now investigating maternal mortality using data such as which provider a patient visited, when an appointment was made or canceled, and patient information such as height, weight, and pre-existing medical conditions. .

“When we do reviews, we look specifically at medical records and death reports, so all we have is written by third parties,” Purcell said. “We have to infer if the patient feels being listened to or heard.”

However, in the next two years, Virginia health officials plan to expand these investigations to include interviews with people who may have insight into a particular individual’s death, such as doctors, family members and doulas. .

The interviews will help state health officials get a better picture of factors that may have contributed to the deaths, Diduk-Smith said.

For example, if a pregnant person misses a check-up, the medical record may only state “appointment non-compliance”, whereas interviews with people show that the mother has no means of transportation to the clinic. It may prove difficult to access or schedule an appointment outside of working hours.

“We have that extra layer, that voice, that really expresses the emotions and realities of that life so that we can provide additional detail and advocate or advocate policies and recommendations to counter this.” I feel we can develop … not just an overview, but the big picture,” Pursell said.

Funding to expand mortality studies to include interviews is an approach other states have taken, say Diduk Smith and Purcell. Two-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and PreventionIn both 2023 and 2024, the Department of Death Prevention will receive $450,000 to work with the Virginia Neonatal and Perinatal Community to address maternal mortality on multiple fronts.

The maternal mortality ratio varies depending on the calculation method ( March of Dimes Virginia’s average infection rate from 2018 to 2020 was 22.3), data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. Increasing trend of maternal deaths nationwide.

These risks also vary significantly by race, with black women having more than twice the maternal mortality rate as white women.

Between 1999 and 2014, “the overall pregnancy-related mortality rate was … 79.3 per 100,000 live births for black women and 34.2 per 100,000 live births for white women.” 2017 Virginia Department of Health Report.