The rate of severe maternal morbidity at delivery—as defined by 21 conditions and procedures–increased 45 percent from 2006 through 2015, from 101.3 to 146.6 per 10,000 delivery hospitalizations, according to a new Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Statistical Brief. This brief presents trends and disparities in delivery hospitalizations involving severe maternal morbidity from 2006 through the third quarter of 2015. (The fourth quarter of 2015 is excluded because of the transition of the International Classification of Diseases coding system from the 9th to the 10th revision). These 21 indicators of severe maternal morbidity include conditions (e.g., renal failure, sepsis), as well as procedures performed during the hospital stay (e.g., blood transfusion, hysterectomy), that may or may not have resulted in in-hospital death.
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