A letter to the editor published March 30 (“‘Anti-choice’ critic”) claimed that “the state of Texas doubled its rate of maternity-related deaths, from 18 percent to 35 percent, between 2010 and 2014, according to the September 2016 journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.”
A rate of 35 percent would mean that over 1 out of every 3 pregnant women in Texas died in 2014, an obvious error.
The actual maternal mortality rate increased from 18 women who died per 100,000 births in 2010 to 35 per 100,000 births in 2014.
The true data show that while the state of Texas did double its rate of maternity-related deaths, the actual rate is only 1/1,000th of the rate stated in the letter.
Here is the link to the original research (http://tinyurl.com/PDN-mortality).
See Figure 4.
I agree with everything else in the letter.
Wendy Goldberg,
Sequim