The number of women who die while giving birth has risen in the past decade according to a new study.
This study was published in The Lancet.
Eight nations worldwide showed the trend, according to Nature World News. The United States ranked 60 on a list of 180, putting the U.S. next to countries like Afghanistan and Central African countries.
When the same study was performed in the 90s the U.S. ranked 22 on the list. China, however, improved on the list from number 157 in the 90s to 57 in the study published Friday.
The study showed that pregnancy related deaths have only risen since 1987, according to The Washington Post. It found that 18.5 women in every 100,000 died giving birth in the United States in 2013.
"For American women, high-risk pregnancies and the number of women with inadequate access to preventive and maternal health care are just two potential causes of this trend," said study author Nicholas Kassebaum. "The good news is that most maternal deaths are preventable, and we can do better."
Half of the maternal deaths happen within 24 hours and one year of giving birth, however, the percentage is higher (55 percent) in the U.S.
The numbers in the United States have been regularly on the rise, but, worldwide the study showed that the number of pregnancy-related deaths dropped to 293,000 from 376,000 in 1990.