Rate of U.S. women dying in childbirth rising

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- U.S. women are dying from childbirth at the highest rate in decades, new government figures show. Though the risk of death is very small, experts believe increasing maternal obesity and a jump in Caesarean sections are partly to blame.

To be sure, death from childbirth remains fairly rare in the United States. The death of infants is much more common -- the nation's infant mortality rate was 679 per 100,000 live births in 2004.

Maternal deaths were a much more common tragedy long ago. Nearly one in every 100 live births resulted in a mother's death as recently as 90 years ago.

But the fact that maternal deaths are rising at all these days is shocking, said Tim Davis, a Virginia man whose wife, Elizabeth, died after childbirth in 2000.