Homicide is the #1 cause of death for pregnant women in the United States

The viral claim that homicide is the “#1 killer of pregnant women” collapses under even basic scrutiny.

1️⃣ The category-swap trick

Researchers quietly move from the CDC’s pregnancy-related deaths (medical causes made worse by pregnancy) to the far broader pregnancy-associated deaths (any cause while pregnant + 1 year postpartum—car crashes, overdoses, lightning, AND homicide).

• Pregnancy-associated ≠ pregnancy-related. CDC defines the former as “a death that occurred during pregnancy, at delivery, or ≤ 1 year postpartum, regardless of cause.” cdc.gov

• When CDC reviewers stick to the pregnancy-related definition, homicide is only 2.9 % of the total. cdc.gov

Result: compare homicide (one big lump) to each individual medical complication, and the ranking flips—voilà, a headline is born.

2️⃣ Tiny absolute numbers

• The flagship study (Wallace et al., 2021) counted 3.62 homicides per 100 000 live births—≈ 120-150 deaths a year nationwide. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

• A 2024 JAMA update (2018-22 data) found 837 homicides out of 10 715 total pregnancy-associated deaths—still under 8 %. jamanetwork.com

That’s tragic, but not remotely the “main killer of mothers.”

3️⃣ Pregnancy doesn’t cause homicide

Wallace et al. showed risk for pregnant/post-partum women is only 16 % higher than for non-pregnant peers (3.62 vs 3.12/100 k). Correlation, not causation. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

4️⃣ Missing context: male victimisation

In the same CDC dataset, men aged 20-24 are killed at ≈ 25 per 100 000—about 7 × the pregnant-woman rate. cdc.govYet headlines rarely call young men the “group most at risk.”

5️⃣ What really kills mothers

When you add all medical causes together—cardiac disease, haemorrhage, infection, hypertensive disorders, mental-health-related overdose, etc.—they dwarf homicide. Homicide is a statistical footnote, not the leader. cdc.gov

Bottom line

The “leading-cause” meme survives only by changing the definition and ignoring scale.If you want honest maternal-health priorities:

1. Fix obstetric care. Cardiac and bleeding complications still take the largest toll.

2. Target real violence risk. Screen for intimate-partner violence and keep guns from known abusers—without hijacking the conversation with sensational but misleading stats.

Don’t be fooled by category games; look at the full pie, not the cherry-picked slice.