The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) announced last week that it would not release its biannual maternal mortality report until December, pushing the release date to after the November election.
The report, which had traditionally been released every other year on or near Sept. 1, was expected to contain the first full year of data on maternal mortality in the state since its near-total abortion ban went into effect. Texas officially banned nearly all abortions in August 2022, just two months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. One year prior, in 2021, the state had passed the Texas Heartbeat Act, which banned any abortions at six weeks.
Researchers, such as Faith Fletcher, a public health and bioethics expert, said the report provides essential data.
"We need the data so that we can understand why women are dying [and] what are some solutions that we can propose," Fletcher toldHouston Public Media.
Fletcher, along with Kari White — a nonresident fellow in maternal and reproductive health at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy — authored an opinion in theHouston Chronicle last week criticizing DSHS's decision to push back the release date.
Fletcher said the report will be key to understanding what effect the state's abortion ban has had on maternal health.
"Based on what the trends have been, yes, we did expect an increase [in maternal mortality], but without having the comprehensive data specifically in Texas, it's hard to really make those assumptions," Fletcher said.
In Texas, Black and Hispanic women are disproportionately impacted by maternal deaths, Fletcher said.
"Generally speaking, from a national level, we know that many of these deaths are preventable — approximately 80%," Fletcher said. "This is generally what we see: lack of health insurance and adequate postpartum support, mental health conditions, intimate partner violence. These are factors that generally increase rates of maternal death and maternal complications ... This has also been the experience of Texans."
In a statement toHouston Public Media,a DSHS spokesperson said the report "isn't delayed," and that DSHS and the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee (MMMRC) were working to "strengthen the report."
"The acting commissioner has asked the committee to strengthen the report by further describing its work around preventability, better defining the sources of its recommendations, and making clear connections between the underlying data, findings, and recommendations," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said a new provision to the Texas Health and Safety Code — passed by the state legislature in June 2025 as part of HB 4666— now allows reports to be submitted no later than Dec. 1.
Speaking toTexas Public Radio's David Martin Davies on Texas Matters,White said the new release date could also pose issues for state lawmakers, who are scheduled to meet for a legislative session starting in January.
"With a delay in the report, there is not going to be an opportunity for people who are seeking office to be able to propose what their solutions would be to address maternal deaths in the state," White said. "There isn't going to be a lot of time for lawmakers to examine the report, interpret its findings, and start to identify solutions that they want to propose."
White said another issue with the forthcoming report is that it omitted deaths from 2022 and 2023 due to the COVID pandemic.
"It is problematic that the deaths from 2022 and 2023 are being omitted because these were the first two years that Texas' full abortion ban was in effect," White said. "We know from other reports that there are pregnant Texans who have been unable to get the evidence-based care that they need to address pregnancy complications, and we know at least some of those Texans have died as a result."
In the same week that DSHS announced it would not release the report until December, ProPublicapublished a comprehensive reportshowing ectopic pregnancy deaths in the U.S. nearly doubled over the past several years. According toProPublica, states with abortion bans saw the largest increases — including Texas, despite the state's abortion ban having an exception for ectopic pregnancies.
According to the Mayo Clinic, an ectopic pregnancy typically occurs in the first trimester and is the result of a pregnancy developing outside the uterus, causing severe bleeding that can result in death if not treated. An ectopic pregnancy cannot proceed normally, and the fertilized egg cannot survive.
When it comes to the importance of collecting data on maternal mortality, Fletcher said it’s important to remember that each statistic represents a person.
"People that are affected by adverse pregnancy outcomes or families that have lost loved ones from maternal death, they deserve answers," Fletcher said. "They deserve the data to understand that's happening, and they also deserve to know that people are working to improve maternal care across the state."
Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies contributed to this report.
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