About this data

Source: MBRRACE-UK, Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care 2026, and maternal mortality data brief 2022–24

• A maternal death is the death of a woman during pregnancy or within 42 days of its end, from causes related to or made worse by the pregnancy. Direct deaths result from complications of pregnancy itself, such as blood clots, bleeding or sepsis. Indirect deaths result from existing or new conditions made worse by pregnancy, such as heart disease or epilepsy. Deaths from accidents or unrelated causes are not counted.
• MBRRACE-UK identifies maternal deaths from several sources, not only death certificates, and reviews each one. Rates are per 100,000 maternities (women giving birth to a live or stillborn baby from 24 weeks of pregnancy).
• Figures cover England only. Women whose ethnicity was not recorded are counted in the White group.
• The numbers of deaths in some groups are small (in 2022 to 2024, 33 Black women, 7 women of Mixed ethnicity and 4 Chinese or other women died), so rates can change a lot from one period to the next.

This chart appears in Child and maternal health.