‘Expectant mother deaths often murder’

Largely unseen by the public, it is a phenomenon that is as consequential as it is poorly understood. Even in the past two years little has been said about the larger convergence of pregnancy and homicide. Until recently, many of the cases have gone virtually unstudied, uncounted, untracked. Police agencies across the country do not regularly ask about maternal status when they investigate homicides. Health experts focus on the medical complications of pregnancy.

‘‘It’s very hard to connect the dots when you don’t even see the dots,’’ said Elaine Alpert, a public health expert at Boston University. ‘‘It’s only just starting to be recognised that there is a trend… between these deaths.’’

The Post’s analysis shows that the killings span racial and ethnic groups. In cases whose details were known, 67 per cent of women were killed with firearms. Many women were slain at home, usually by men they knew. The cases are not commonplace compared with other homicides but are more frequent than most people know—and have changed the way some experts think about pregnancy.

Five years ago in Maryland, state health researchers Isabelle Horon and Diana Cheng set out to study maternal deaths. In their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2001, they wrote that in Maryland, ‘‘a pregnant or recently pregnant woman is more likely to be a victim of homicide than to die of any other cause.’’

Building upon this study and others, The Post contacted states and for data on maternal deaths. Many states could provide some data, mostly from death certificates. The Post combined what it collected with cases culled from other sources. The 1,367 maternal homicides took place over 14 years.

‘‘That’s a formidable number — and that’s just the tip,’’ said Judith McFarlane, who studies violence and pregnancy at Texas Woman’s University and who described the void of reliable numbers as ‘‘embarrassing.’’ —LAT-WP