The health ministry usually releases its birth statistics in December, but the announcements of the estimates were canceled in 2020 and 2021 in light of the impact from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In 2021, 33 women died out of every 100,000 live births in the US, up from 23.8 in 2020. That rate was more than double for black women, who were nearly three times more likely to die than white ...