When do most maternal deaths occur

Vital Signs. Section Navigation. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Syndicate. Pregnancy-related Deaths. Minus Related Pages. About women die from pregnancy-related complications each year in the US. About 3 in 5 pregnancy-related deaths could be prevented. Other leading causes of death included infections and severe bleeding. Preventing pregnancy-related death every step of the way. During Pregnancy : Improve access to and delivery of quality prenatal care, which includes managing chronic conditions and educating about warning signs.

At Delivery : Standardize patient care, including delivering high-risk women at hospitals with specialized providers and equipment. In , the lifetime risk of maternal death in low income countries as a whole was 1 in 45, compared to 1 in 5, in high-income countries. Among regions, women in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest lifetime risk 1 in 38 , followed by South Asia 1 in AbouZahr, C. Khan, Khalid S. Say L et al. Definition: The maternal mortality ratio MMR is defined as the number of maternal deaths during a given time period per , live births during the same time period.

It depicts the risk of maternal death relative to the number of live births and essentially captures the risk of death in a single pregnancy or a single live birth. Maternal deaths: The annual number of female deaths from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management excluding accidental or incidental causes during pregnancy and childbirth or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, expressed per , live births, for a specified time period.

For those indicators where only point-estimates are reported in the text or tables, UIs can be obtained from supplementary material online. For more information on the metadata please visit SDG metadata. For further information visit, Trends in maternal mortality: — Maternal mortality September All topics. Maternal mortality declined by 38 per cent between and Timing of maternal death antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum by sub-Saharan African region. Trends in the timing of maternal mortality indicators Fig 2 illustrates the trends in antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum mortality rates for all countries in each sub-Saharan African region.

Fig 2. Trends in timing of maternal death antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum mortality rates by sub-Saharan African region. Maternal health care coverage The proportions of women making at least one antenatal care visit and four or more antenatal care visits for the last live birth in the five years before the interview and the proportion of women who used a skilled birth attendant for their last birth are shown in Annex 5.

Fig 3. Maternal health care and timing of maternal death Fig 4 presents the associations between the timing of death and antenatal care and the presence of skilled attendants at childbirth. Fig 4. Timing of maternal death antepartum, intrapartum and postpartum mortality rates versus antenatal care and childbirth. Discussion Our analysis of DHS from to for 34 countries provides new evidence on the levels and trends in the timing of maternal death in sub-Saharan Africa.

Conclusion Maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa is high, with substantial mortality during all three risk periods, including the antepartum period. Funding Statement No direct funding was received for this study. References 1. Trends in maternal mortality: to Geneva: World Health Organization. Maternal mortality for countries, — a systematic analysis of progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5.

Italy: Every Woman Every Child. Maternal deaths: initial report of an on-going monitoring of maternal deaths at the Federal Medical Centre Katsina, Northwest Nigeria. J Matern Fetal Neonatal Med. An autopsy study of maternal mortality in Mozambique: the contribution of infectious diseases. PLoS Med. Measuring maternal mortality: an overview of opportunities and options for developing countries. BMC Med. The use of the sisterhood method for estimating maternal mortality ratio in Lagos state, Nigeria.

J Obstet Gynaecol. Maternal mortality: only 42 days? Global, regional, and national levels and causes of maternal mortality during — a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study Global causes of maternal death: a WHO systematic analysis. Lancet Glob Health. Continuum of care for maternal, newborn, and child health: from slogan to service delivery. WHO recommendations on antenatal care for a positive pregnancy experience; [cited 15 November ] [Internet].

Strategies for reducing maternal mortality: getting on with what works. Why did maternal mortality decline in Matlab? Stud Fam Plann. Scott S, Ronsmans C. The relationship between birth with a health professional and maternal mortality in observational studies: a review of the literature. Trop Med Int Health. Strategies for reducing maternal mortality in developing countries: what can we learn from the history of the industrialized West?

Alternative versus standard packages of antenatal care for low-risk pregnancy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. International I. DHS program: demographic and health surveys [cited 1 February ] [Internet]. World population prospects: the revision; [cited [Internet]United Nations.

Bank TW. Washington, DC: World Bank. The triple threat of pregnancy, HIV infection and malaria: reported causes of maternal mortality in two nationwide health facility assessments in Mozambique, and BMC Pregnancy Childbirth.

An assessment of DHS maternal mortality data and estimates. DHS methodological reports No. The epidemiology of pregnancy outcomes in rural Burkina Faso. Measuring unsafe abortion-related mortality: a systematic review of the existing methods. Am J Public Health ;e60— Pregnancy-related mortality in the United States, — Chronic heart disease and severe obstetric morbidity among hospitalizations for pregnancy in the USA: — Br J Obstet Gynaecol.

Hypertensive disorders and severe obstetric morbidity in the United States: — Disparities in chronic conditions among women hospitalized for delivery in the United States, — Diabetes trends among delivery hospitalizations in the United States, — Diabetes Care.

Trends in prevalence of diabetes among delivery hospitalizations, United States, — Matern Child Health J. Prevalence and changes in preexisting diabetes and gestational diabetes among women who had a live birth—United States, — Am J Cardiol. Get E-mail Updates. To receive email updates about this page, enter your email address: Email Address. What's this? More Related Links. Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website. Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.

You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.