UK maternal death rate 20% higher than in 2009–11, new MBRRACE-UK report finds
Published on Thursday, 10 September 2026 Post
The latest Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care report identifies persistent inequalities and pressures affecting maternity care and sets out new national recommendations alongside practical lessons to improve care for pregnant and recently pregnant women.
Researchers from the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit (NPEU) at the University of Oxford have published the latest MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care report, highlighting the need for coordinated action across healthcare services to improve maternal care and prevent avoidable deaths.
The 13th report produced by MBRRACE-UK follows the data brief published in January 2026. It includes national surveillance data on women who died during or up to one year after pregnancy between 2022 and 2024, alongside confidential enquiries examining the care of women who died from a range of causes.
In 2022–24, 252 women died from direct and indirect causes during pregnancy or within six weeks of the end of pregnancy, equivalent to a maternal mortality rate of 12.80 per 100,000 maternities.
The rate was 20% higher than in 2009–11, when the previous government set an ambition to halve maternal mortality in England by 2025.
Persistent inequalities in maternal mortality
The report highlights continuing inequalities in maternal mortality.
Women aged 35 or over were at increased risk compared with women aged 25–29. The maternal mortality rate for Black women was nearly three times that for White women, while women living in the most deprived areas continued to have around twice the maternal mortality rate of those living in the least deprived areas.
Blood clots remained the leading cause of maternal death during pregnancy or within six weeks after pregnancy, followed by heart disease and psychiatric causes.
Between six weeks and one year after pregnancy, suicide remained the leading cause of death, with psychiatric causes accounting for a third of deaths during this later period.
From evidence to action
A central message from this year's report is the importance of proactive rather than reactive care.
Across the confidential enquiries, assessors repeatedly identified the importance of preparation and multidisciplinary working, recognising deterioration, listening to women, and ensuring that services can respond quickly when care needs escalation.
The report makes five new national recommendations calling for action on:
- theatre and workforce capacity to manage increasing rates of caesarean birth;
- access to postnatal contraception in maternity services;
- rapid access to antibiotics at the point of care;
- processes for urgent prescribing of medication; and
- appropriate multidisciplinary care to provide consistent advice for women with complex medical conditions.
“Learning from the care of women who have died, and whose voices can no longer be heard, remains as important as ever. Bringing together national learning generates system-level messages that do not single out any one maternity unit, but apply across the whole of the UK.
“In a year that has seen the publication of other major maternity investigation reports, it is important to recognise the key messages which are consistently highlighted in this and previous MBRRACE-UK reports and are mirrored in the learning from those other reviews. Women's deaths will only be prevented if these actions are implemented.” - Professor Marian Knight, MBRRACE-UK programme lead
“Women must be listened to so worrying symptoms and clinical deterioration are not missed, alongside strengthening services and systems to be able to respond to a maternity population with increasingly complex health needs.
“The priorities for safer maternity care are clear. We must now work together to drive lasting improvements and ensure equitable outcomes for all women.” - Dr Allison Felker, MBRRACE-UK Maternal programme lead
Bringing together expertise across maternal health
The report is being launched alongside the MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care 2026 virtual conference, bringing together researchers, clinicians and partner organisations to discuss the findings and how they can be translated into improvements in care.
The conference draws on expertise from across maternity care, maternal medicine, critical care, research and the third sector. Contributors include experts from the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, the University of Leicester, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, TIMMS – The Institute of Metabolic Medicine and Surgery, and Sands, alongside specialists from other areas of healthcare.
The conference also includes a presentation introducing the Maternal Critical Care Alliance (MCCA), which is focused on improving care and support for women who become critically ill during or following pregnancy.
Read the full Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care 2026 report. https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk/reports/maternal-reports/maternal-report-2022-2024
The report is produced by MBRRACE-UK, which is based within the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health.
