[sshine]

> ... murder by a spouse ... is not what “maternal death rate” typically measures

That is a good example.

While perhaps unrelated to pregnancies, it is incidentally another difference between US and Norway.

[insickness]

You can't say that from these statistics if the statistic in Norway does not include murder by spouse.

[sshine]

That is correct.

I am making that claim without backing it up by references.

My point is that there are other correlated factors that explain death rates than pregnancy.

Another one might be that the death rate in the fertile age group could simply be higher, too, although I don't know if that is true.