MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives Improving Mothers' Care - Lessons learned to inform maternity care from the UK and Ireland Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths and Morbidity 2019-21 (12 October 2023)

Summary

This is the tenth MBRRACE-UK annual report and details the care of 572 women who died during pregnancy, or up to one year after pregnancy between 2019 and 2021 in the UK. The report also includes confidential enquiries into the care of women who died between 2019-2021 in the UK and Ireland from haemorrhage, amniotic fluid embolism, anaesthetic causes, sepsis, general medical and surgical disorders, epilepsy and stroke.

By global standards, giving birth in the UK is safe, but the data reported this year should be taken as a warning signal concerning the state of maternity services and the consequences of increasing inequalities and social complexities. While Covid-19 is a significant feature of the deaths reported this year, the pandemic must not distract from wider trends. The Government’s ambition in England was to reduce maternal mortality by 50% between 2010-2025. This target is unlikely to be met. Since 2009-11, maternal mortality has increased by 15%. Crucially, the figures detailed in this report are from before the cost-of-living crisis of 2022-23. When the deaths due to Covid-19 are excluded, maternal death rates are very similar to those in 2016. There is concern that we risk losing the gains made in previous decades.

Downloads

• Lay summary
• Full report
• Infographics
• Themed Surveillance Report
• Themed Maternal Morbidity Report
• Themed Maternal Mortality Report

Content

Key findings

• Deaths from direct causes (such as childbirth-related infections or suicide) have increased.
• For conditions such as pre-eclampsia, the rates remain more than five times higher than the lowest rate in 2012-14.
• Women from Black ethnic backgrounds remain four times more likely to die, and women from Asian ethnic backgrounds are twice as likely to die, compared to White women.
• Suicide is the leading direct cause of death between 6 weeks and 12 months after the end of pregnancy.
• Women living in the most deprived areas continue to have the highest maternal mortality rate compared to those living in the least deprived areas.
• Twelve percent of women who died during or up to a year after pregnancy in the UK in 2019-21 had multiple severe disadvantages.