(NIH/Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Racial and ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity--life-threatening maternal complications associated with childbirth--have persisted and increased at high rates among U.S. women, according to an analysis of nearly 20 years of California hospital records funded by the National Institutes of Health. Known risk factors for these complications--such as blood pressure disorders, asthma and Caesarean birth--do not fully explain the increase or why the disparities remain.