The report, MBRRACE Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care, found that 229 women died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after in 2018-20, a 19% increase on previous years, after excluding deaths from Covid. It also analyzed the care of 289 women who had died up to one year after pregnancy during the same period. Women living in the most deprived areas were more than twice as likely to die as those in the most affluent areas of the UK, the report found, a gap that has widened significantly. Professor Marian Knight, of the University of Oxford, who led the study, described the picture as “bleak”. “Maternal mortality has gotten significantly worse,” he said. “The really very clear pattern, which has been getting worse in recent years, is that many of the women who are dying have multiple disabilities. “Maternal mortality rates are a barometer of health systems,” he added. “That, to me, is a barometer of our health system in its broadest sense.” Disparities linked to ethnicity remain strong, but have narrowed slightly since the previous report. “The gap between black and white women has not gotten worse, despite all the challenges of the pandemic,” Knight said. “This should be seen as a positive, but maternal mortality for black women is still 3.7 times that of white women.” In previous annual reviews, heart attacks were the leading cause of maternal deaths in the UK, but the latest data showed mental illness was now on equal footing. The leading immediate cause of death was suicide, which had tripled from 2017-19 among pregnant women or within six weeks of their pregnancy ending, accounting for 18% of maternal deaths overall. The government has a stated ambition to halve maternal mortality in England between 2010 and 2025, but it has risen by 8% since 2010-12, latest figures show. The report found that many of the women did not have a formal mental health diagnosis but were dealing with multiple adversities, including a history of childhood trauma or domestic abuse. “We need to recognize where we’re not providing the services for these groups of women,” Knight said. “We design our systems for the middle-class white woman. We need to design our systems so that they work for everyone.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The Royal College of Midwives said the rise in maternal deaths was “a tragic sign of a lack of government investment in maternity services”. “Any increase in maternal deaths, however small, is deeply worrying and we are moving backwards, not forwards,” said Gill Walton, chief executive of the RCM. “Governments need to focus efforts on the critical areas where women are frustrated and not getting the care they deserve and should expect. We have stretched midwives and maternity services trying to do too much, with too little, for too long. This should be a time of great joy for women and families, but tragically for some, it is a time of disappointment.” Naomi Delap, director of the charity Birth Companions, said the reasons behind the rising figures needed urgent investigation. “This report of maternal deaths is a damning indictment of the government’s failure to focus on the social determinants of health and invest in mental health support and wrap-around services for women living in the most difficult circumstances,” she said.
