Texas maternal mortality committee to skip over full reviews in years after abortion ban

AUSTIN (KXAN) — In its next meeting on Dec. 6, the Texas Maternal Mortality Committee will begin reviewing death cases from 2024 and will skip over two years of full death reviews.

The committee's chair Dr. Carla Ortique made the announcement during a public meeting on Sept. 27.

This means maternal mortality rates won't be fully examined from the time period directly after federal abortion laws were overturned in June 2022.

"This is not the first time we've leapfrogged forward," Ortique said. "In an effort to be more contemporary, recognizing what's happening in the state, [we felt this was necessary]."

Ortique alluded to the process of reviewing cases, being extensive. For that reason, making it necessary to skip over years to provide analysis on the most recent depiction of maternal deaths across the state.

"If we were to keep reviewing year after year, we’d still be in 2016, probably," Ortique said.

Texas Department of Health and Human Services (DSHS) Commissioner Dr. Jennifer Shuford sent a letter to the committee supporting its decision.

A DSHS spokesperson said not doing a comprehensive review of cases from 2022-2023 doesn't mean data from those years will be completely omitted.

"It’s important to note that that case reviews are not the only tool we have for understanding maternal health. Our Maternal and Child Health epidemiologists continue to analyze and publish data on maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity for the intervening years, including maternal mortality ratios and their cause and timing of death analysis. Some data from 2022 has already been added to the dashboards and additional data for 2022 and 2023 will be added as the analyses are completed."

Lara M. Anton
Senior Press Officer
Texas Department of State Health Services

Still, maternal health advocate, Nakeenya Wilson finds not doing an in-depth analysis of the past two years, concerning. Wilson served on the Maternal Mortality Committee for years. And advocating for improving maternal health is personal for her, because she says she almost died giving birth.

"We owe it to those women and their families to understand what happened, and we owe it to the women of Texas who have less reproductive freedom in 2024," Wilson said. "If we're concerned about being able to move through the cases efficiently...the resolution is not to skip cases, the resolution is to optimize the process."

Wilson told KXAN, part of what makes the process of reviewing death cases longer, is that Texas requires information showing who the patient is, to be redacted before it gets to the committee.

Ortique mentioned in the Sept. 27 meeting, the committee would like to see the state get rid of that redaction requirement.

Ortique is also pushing for her committee to be allowed to review abortion-related death cases, which they found out earlier this year, hasn't been included in data they review.