Of all the ways the United States claims to be a global leader, this is one ranking no one wants to top: the U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation on Earth, and the gap isn't close. A widely cited Commonwealth Fund analysis comparing the U.S. to a dozen high-income countries found that American women died from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes at a rate of 22.3 per 100,000 live births in 2022 — a figure more than 55% higher than Chile, the co