Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths

NPR's Juana Summers talks with ProPublica data reporter Andrea Suozzo about their investigation looking into the rise in deaths related to ectopic pregnancies.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: An ectopic pregnancy is a condition where the fertilized egg implants and grows outside the uterus, most often in the fallopian tube, but sometimes elsewhere in the abdomen. This is a medical emergency that requires intervention. The fertilized egg can't become a viable pregnancy and can cause life-threatening bleeding. A new ProPublica investigation finds that deaths from ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled between 2020 and 2025 when compared with the six years before. And those numbers, they're much higher in states that have enacted abortion bans. ProPublica data reporter Andrea Suozzo joins me now. Welcome. ANDREA SUOZZO: Thank you so much for having me. SUMMERS: So if you could just start by telling us, what is it that makes an ectopic pregnancy dangerous? And what is the typical treatment? SUOZZO: When an ectopic pregnancy implants in a location outside of the uterus or, in rare cases, you know, in a C-section scar within the uterus, the real risk is that it is going to get big enough to rupture whatever organ or wherever it is implanted and it causes catastrophic bleeding which can lead very quickly to death. SUMMERS: When you took a look at this data and saw that deaths had jumped up from about 100 to nearly 200 deaths in recent years, what kind of questions did that raise for you? SUOZZO: I want to be clear that ectopic pregnancy is rare. The most recent estimates, which are a couple decades old, put it at about somewhere between 1 and 2% of pregnancies. What experts we talked to weren't sure of is, has that incidence rate risen in recent years? And that is something that we don't know, that folks we talked to didn't know, that a lot of people said more research is needed. SUMMERS: Yeah. SUOZZO: But when you see a doubling of death rates - and to be clear, this is happening nationally. The rise is steeper in states that implemented an abortion ban after the Dobbs decision. And if you're seeing an increase in deaths, that also potentially means there are a lot of bad outcomes that don't end in death. SUMMERS: Perhaps the biggest change in maternal healthcare in recent years is that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. But many abortion bans, they actually do have exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, and yet you still see a steeper increase in states with bans. What's going on there? SUOZZO: Well, one thing that I think is important to note is that, broadly, the states that have implemented strict abortion bans have for a long time had worse maternal outcomes than states that did not implement a ban. They may not have expanded Medicaid access. There may be fewer resources for pregnant women for postpartum care. However, what we saw in kind of combing through some lawsuits where women who had ectopic pregnancies are alleging delays in care, and just in talking to doctors, is that even if a state exempts ectopic pregnancy care from its abortion ban, there is that gray area before you can definitively see an ectopic pregnancy on an ultrasound. Doctors that we talked to feared that women are just being told to come back and come back and come back until something has gone wrong or, in the best-case scenario, until they can locate that pregnancy and intervene. I think one of the other things that comes up here is ectopic pregnancies are typically going to cause complications before you get in for your first prenatal visit at your OB-GYN's office. SUMMERS: Right. SUOZZO: That's usually around 10 weeks. And if you're experiencing pregnancy complications before that, generally, you are going to go to the emergency department. And so emergency medical doctors may not be as aware of what they can and can't do within the confines of an abortion law, and they may just have less experience... SUMMERS: Right. SUOZZO: ...Dealing with productive health issues. SUMMERS: Andrea, when you and your colleague spoke with doctors and maternal health experts and present them with this data, to what degree do they see abortion restrictions as a significant factor in this increase? SUOZZO: I think it's very complicated to unpack that question. But there are potentially a lot of other things that are going into either the rate at which women are getting ectopic pregnancies. There are some risk factors - recent rises like an increase in sexually transmitted infections that occurred during the pandemic - that could have led to increases in sort of fallopian tube scarring, which could increase the rate of ectopic pregnancies. And so experts broadly said, we should study this, but it is really, really hard to unpack all of the possible variables. You know, death certificate data comes at the very end of each of these stories of a woman who didn't get care in time. SUMMERS: We've been speaking with Andrea Suozzo of ProPublica. Her piece, reported with Agnel Philip, is online now. Thanks so much for sharing your reporting. SUOZZO: Thank you so much for having me. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: An ectopic pregnancy is a condition where the fertilized egg implants and grows outside the uterus, most often in the fallopian tube, but sometimes elsewhere in the abdomen. This is a medical emergency that requires intervention. The fertilized egg can't become a viable pregnancy and can cause life-threatening bleeding. A new ProPublica investigation finds that deaths from ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled between 2020 and 2025 when compared with the six years before. And those numbers, they're much higher in states that have enacted abortion bans. ProPublica data reporter Andrea Suozzo joins me now. Welcome. ANDREA SUOZZO: Thank you so much for having me. SUMMERS: So if you could just start by telling us, what is it that makes an ectopic pregnancy dangerous? And what is the typical treatment? SUOZZO: When an ectopic pregnancy implants in a location outside of the uterus or, in rare cases, you know, in a C-section scar within the uterus, the real risk is that it is going to get big enough to rupture whatever organ or wherever it is implanted and it causes catastrophic bleeding which can lead very quickly to death. SUMMERS: When you took a look at this data and saw that deaths had jumped up from about 100 to nearly 200 deaths in recent years, what kind of questions did that raise for you? SUOZZO: I want to be clear that ectopic pregnancy is rare. The most recent estimates, which are a couple decades old, put it at about somewhere between 1 and 2% of pregnancies. What experts we talked to weren't sure of is, has that incidence rate risen in recent years? And that is something that we don't know, that folks we talked to didn't know, that a lot of people said more research is needed. SUMMERS: Yeah. SUOZZO: But when you see a doubling of death rates - and to be clear, this is happening nationally. The rise is steeper in states that implemented an abortion ban after the Dobbs decision. And if you're seeing an increase in deaths, that also potentially means there are a lot of bad outcomes that don't end in death. SUMMERS: Perhaps the biggest change in maternal healthcare in recent years is that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. But many abortion bans, they actually do have exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, and yet you still see a steeper increase in states with bans. What's going on there? SUOZZO: Well, one thing that I think is important to note is that, broadly, the states that have implemented strict abortion bans have for a long time had worse maternal outcomes than states that did not implement a ban. They may not have expanded Medicaid access. There may be fewer resources for pregnant women for postpartum care. However, what we saw in kind of combing through some lawsuits where women who had ectopic pregnancies are alleging delays in care, and just in talking to doctors, is that even if a state exempts ectopic pregnancy care from its abortion ban, there is that gray area before you can definitively see an ectopic pregnancy on an ultrasound. Doctors that we talked to feared that women are just being told to come back and come back and come back until something has gone wrong or, in the best-case scenario, until they can locate that pregnancy and intervene. I think one of the other things that comes up here is ectopic pregnancies are typically going to cause complications before you get in for your first prenatal visit at your OB-GYN's office. SUMMERS: Right. SUOZZO: That's usually around 10 weeks. And if you're experiencing pregnancy complications before that, generally, you are going to go to the emergency department. And so emergency medical doctors may not be as aware of what they can and can't do within the confines of an abortion law, and they may just have less experience... SUMMERS: Right. SUOZZO: ...Dealing with productive health issues. SUMMERS: Andrea, when you and your colleague spoke with doctors and maternal health experts and present them with this data, to what degree do they see abortion restrictions as a significant factor in this increase? SUOZZO: I think it's very complicated to unpack that question. But there are potentially a lot of other things that are going into either the rate at which women are getting ectopic pregnancies. There are some risk factors - recent rises like an increase in sexually transmitted infections that occurred during the pandemic - that could have led to increases in sort of fallopian tube scarring, which could increase the rate of ectopic pregnancies. And so experts broadly said, we should study this, but it is really, really hard to unpack all of the possible variables. You know, death certificate data comes at the very end of each of these stories of a woman who didn't get care in time. SUMMERS: We've been speaking with Andrea Suozzo of ProPublica. Her piece, reported with Agnel Philip, is online now. Thanks so much for sharing your reporting. SUOZZO: Thank you so much for having me. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

An ectopic pregnancy is a condition where the fertilized egg implants and grows outside the uterus, most often in the fallopian tube, but sometimes elsewhere in the abdomen. This is a medical emergency that requires intervention. The fertilized egg can't become a viable pregnancy and can cause life-threatening bleeding. A new ProPublica investigation finds that deaths from ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled between 2020 and 2025 when compared with the six years before. And those numbers, they're much higher in states that have enacted abortion bans. ProPublica data reporter Andrea Suozzo joins me now. Welcome. ANDREA SUOZZO: Thank you so much for having me. SUMMERS: So if you could just start by telling us, what is it that makes an ectopic pregnancy dangerous? And what is the typical treatment? SUOZZO: When an ectopic pregnancy implants in a location outside of the uterus or, in rare cases, you know, in a C-section scar within the uterus, the real risk is that it is going to get big enough to rupture whatever organ or wherever it is implanted and it causes catastrophic bleeding which can lead very quickly to death. SUMMERS: When you took a look at this data and saw that deaths had jumped up from about 100 to nearly 200 deaths in recent years, what kind of questions did that raise for you? SUOZZO: I want to be clear that ectopic pregnancy is rare. The most recent estimates, which are a couple decades old, put it at about somewhere between 1 and 2% of pregnancies. What experts we talked to weren't sure of is, has that incidence rate risen in recent years? And that is something that we don't know, that folks we talked to didn't know, that a lot of people said more research is needed. SUMMERS: Yeah. SUOZZO: But when you see a doubling of death rates - and to be clear, this is happening nationally. The rise is steeper in states that implemented an abortion ban after the Dobbs decision. And if you're seeing an increase in deaths, that also potentially means there are a lot of bad outcomes that don't end in death. SUMMERS: Perhaps the biggest change in maternal healthcare in recent years is that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. But many abortion bans, they actually do have exceptions for ectopic pregnancies, and yet you still see a steeper increase in states with bans. What's going on there? SUOZZO: Well, one thing that I think is important to note is that, broadly, the states that have implemented strict abortion bans have for a long time had worse maternal outcomes than states that did not implement a ban. They may not have expanded Medicaid access. There may be fewer resources for pregnant women for postpartum care. However, what we saw in kind of combing through some lawsuits where women who had ectopic pregnancies are alleging delays in care, and just in talking to doctors, is that even if a state exempts ectopic pregnancy care from its abortion ban, there is that gray area before you can definitively see an ectopic pregnancy on an ultrasound. Doctors that we talked to feared that women are just being told to come back and come back and come back until something has gone wrong or, in the best-case scenario, until they can locate that pregnancy and intervene. I think one of the other things that comes up here is ectopic pregnancies are typically going to cause complications before you get in for your first prenatal visit at your OB-GYN's office. SUMMERS: Right. SUOZZO: That's usually around 10 weeks. And if you're experiencing pregnancy complications before that, generally, you are going to go to the emergency department. And so emergency medical doctors may not be as aware of what they can and can't do within the confines of an abortion law, and they may just have less experience... SUMMERS: Right. SUOZZO: ...Dealing with productive health issues. SUMMERS: Andrea, when you and your colleague spoke with doctors and maternal health experts and present them with this data, to what degree do they see abortion restrictions as a significant factor in this increase? SUOZZO: I think it's very complicated to