US has a far higher death rate than the European average: ... one in 4800 dies vs. one in 16,400 for top 10 Euro countries

U.S. maternal death rate higher than Europe's: report | Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:03pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has a sharply higher rate of women dying during or just after pregnancy than European countries, even some relatively poor countries such as Macedonia and Bosnia, according to the first estimates in five years on maternal deaths worldwide.

The United States has a far higher death rate than the European average, the report shows, with one in 4,800 U.S. women dying from complications of pregnancy or childbirth, the same as Belarus and just slightly better than Serbia's rate of one in 4,500.

Just one out of 47,600 women in Ireland die during or just after childbirth, the report found. Bosnia had the second-lowest rate, with 1 in 29,000 women dying during pregnancy and childbirth.

"Among the ten top-ranked European and other industrialized countries, where women are guaranteed good-quality health and family planning services that minimize their lifetime risk, fewer than one in 16,400 will die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth," the United Nations, which issued the report along with the World Bank, said in a statement. ...