“Behind every data point in this report is a life lost.”

Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, included that quote in a Nov. 25 release detailing the agency’s most recent data about deaths that occur during or within a year of pregnancy (tinyurl.com/MaternalMortality2025).

The most recent numbers are from 2021-2022 and stem from the work of review committees that determine whether a fatality was related to pregnancy while also assessing preventability, contributing factors and possible action steps.

In those two years, about 43% of the 220 deaths were associated with pregnancies. Two concerning data points are that pregnancy-related mortality is up compared to earlier reporting cycles and from this period potentially 91% of the deaths were preventable.

A little math indicates we’re talking about about 86 people over two years. That’s a pretty small number in a state of 12 million, especially for those not likely to be pregnant or simply past that life phase. Absent a state survey process, it’s likely the vast majority of Illinoisans wouldn’t encounter or consider these outcomes.

But, as Vohra reminds, these are people, not numbers. The same sentiment echoed in an Oct. 9 column about traffic facility statistics (we’re now down 42 deaths compared with Dec. 2, 2024) and surfaces often when discussing other state agencies necessarily concerned with life-or-death outcomes, especially the Department of Children and Family Services.

The answers aren’t exclusively more money or bigger government, but those takeaways are inevitable when filtering new information through a state agency. The health department touts Gov. JB Pritzker’s “Birth Equity Blueprint,” which incorporates several other agencies, and lists bullet points like $12 million in child tax credits, $5 million to expand home visits, training for 186 doulas and 79 lactation consultants and more.

Those investments align with belief in addressing issues before they reach the stress points of the social safety net as well as a general presumption wealth and geography shouldn’t limit health care outcomes. Such tenets aren’t universally held positions, to put it mildly, but Illinois is far from alone in at least engaging with the statistics and seeking solutions.

Whether it be the World Health Organization, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations or various professional journals, universities and charitable efforts, the overwhelming majority of proposals involve framing maternal mortality as a public health issue and therefore wielding governmental resources in response.

Personally it’s all evidence against the wisdom of a hospital and insurance industrial complex factoring profits and investment returns, but redirecting those ships is a generational process. All the while, we keep amassing preventable data points – lives lost – and so the work continues.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.