Devastating data from two new reports by the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Control (DHEC) “show a dramatic increase” in deaths of mothers and infants. The 2023 Infant Mortality Report shows the total number of infant deaths was “the highest in nearly a decade,” with 416 deaths. In 2012 there were 435 infant deaths. According to the report, Black infants are “dying at a rate nearly 2.5 times that of White infants.”
The second report, using data from 2018-2019, investigated “66 pregnancy-associated deaths from 2019″—the state’s most recent data. The 2019 report from the South Carolina Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee (SCMMMRC) showed a 9.3% increase in maternal deaths directly related to “pregnancy itself from the year before.” The pregnancy-related mortality rate in South Carolina is higher than the national average, “especially in non-Hispanic Black women.”
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