The committee’s next report, due Jan. 31 to the Idaho Legislature, is set to focus on maternal deaths cases in 2023. (Getty Images)
A panel of Idaho medical experts recommends the Board of Medicine approve a new report on maternal deaths and have it presented to the Legislature.
Maternal death reviews get political as state officials interfere with committees’ work
The Idaho Maternal Mortality Review Committee approved the recommendation for the board to approve the committee’s report on a unanimous vote during a brief meeting Wednesday, Idaho Board of Medicine spokesperson Bob McLaughlin told the Idaho Capital Sun after the meeting.
The Idaho Board of Medicine is set to meet at 6:30 a.m. Thursday to review the report.
Newly reassembled, the maternal mortality review committee is focused on identifying, reviewing and analyzing maternal deaths in Idaho to determine if the pregnancy was incidental to, or a contributing factor in, the mother’s death.
The committee’s next report, due Jan. 31 to the Idaho Legislature, is set to focus on maternal deaths cases in 2023. After that, the committee plans to look into 2022 maternal deaths, the Sun previously reported.
The Legislature reassembled the committee through a new law passed in 2024, after lawmakers in 2023 let the committee disband by not renewing it. In summer 2023, Idaho became the only U.S. state without a maternal mortality review committee.
The committee’s last report, using data from 2021, found Idaho’s maternal mortality rate nearly doubled in recent years — and most of those deaths were preventable.
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The committee had initially planned to vote on final approval for the report on Friday, but canceled the meeting that morning when legal counsel noticed the agenda didn’t include an executive session “in the event” committee members wanted to discuss report details that could’ve included “confidential patient information,” McLaughlin told the Sun in a statement on Tuesday.
“To avoid violating Idaho Open Meeting law, the meeting was canceled and rescheduled” for Wednesday “to provide the required advanced public notice of the meeting with the revised agenda,” he said.
The 12-member committee is made up of medical professionals and serves as an advisory body to the Idaho State Board of Medicine. The reassembled committee met twice late last year.
The committee was previously housed in the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. But the new law that reinstated it placed the committee under the Idaho Board of Medicine, which licenses doctors.
Two doctors who previously served on the committee, and are involved in lawsuits against the state of Idaho or state government agencies related to Idaho’s abortion bans, applied and were not selected, the Sun previously reported. Board of Medicine officials told the Sun they couldn’t say why certain applicants weren’t selected, citing limits in state law.
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