Mental health conditions have overtaken infection as the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in Texas, according to the state's maternal mortality review committee, whose long-awaited report came out Friday.
The report, produced jointly by the state health department and its Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, was due Sept. 1 but was held until after the Nov. 3 election. It examines deaths from 2021 and 2024 and skips case reviews for 2022 and 2023.
The numbers
Texas saw 20.5 maternal deaths for every 100,000 births in 2024, down from 23.5 in 2021, a figure that leaves out COVID-19 deaths, the Texas Tribune reported. That is close to, and slightly above, the 2019 level.
Other findings, as summarized by the Tribune:
- More than three in four deaths in both years were judged preventable, a little lower than the 80% in the prior report.
- Infection was the top cause of pregnancy-related death in 2021. In 2024, it was mental health.
- Violence, including suicide and homicide, was a factor in 19% of pregnancy-related deaths in 2024, up from 5% in 2021.
- Obesity as a contributing factor fell from 63% to 29%, while chronic illness, mental disorders and substance use each roughly doubled.
- Black women died of pregnancy-related causes at 2.4 times the rate of white women, and their rate of severe complications, 146.2 for every 100,000 births, was over twice the rate for white women.
- Just over half of the women who died were on Medicaid, 53% in 2024 compared with 57% in 2021.
The gap years and the delay
Because 2022 and 2023 were not reviewed case by case, the report offers no detail on the first full years after Texas banned nearly all abortions. It does not mention abortion or the change in state law.
