Mortality and COVID-19 Among Pregnant Women in Mexico

Although the burden of maternal mortality attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection in high-income countries seems to be low, the impact in low- and middle-income countries has not been fully described. To estimate the number of excess deaths in pregnant women that could be directly or indirectly attributed to COVID-19, investigators in Mexico used data from the Mexican Ministry of Health to assess weekly maternal death counts during the first 32 weeks of 2020 compared with the years 2011–2019.

The 523 maternal deaths in 2020 (42.4/100,000) exceeded the upper bound of expected maternal deaths (29.5/100,000). Among these deaths, 32.0% were caused by respiratory disease; by contrast, between 2011 and 2019, respiratory disease accounted for 1.6% to …