Saving Mothers' Lives: - Public Health Agency for Northern Ireland

Table 1.5
Maternal deaths by gestation, type of death and neonatal outcome; United Kingdom: 2003-05.
Undelivered
Direct Indirect Direct and
Indirect
Type of Death
Coincidental Late
Direct
n n n (%) n n n (%)
Less than 24 weeks’* 43 39 82 (28) 18 - 100 (28)
24 weeks or more - 21 21 (7) 10 - 31 (9)
Delivered at 24 or more weeks
of gestation
Live birth** 64 83 147 (50) 16 7 170 (47)
Stillbirth** 17 10 27 (9) 6 2 35 (10)
Early Neonatal Death** 8 10 18 (6) 5 2 25 (7)
All 132 163 295 (100) 55 11 361 (100)
* Includes all ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages and termination of pregnancy.
** Twin pregnancies are counted as one birth event or maternity. There were fi ve sets of twins in the Direct category, four in the
Indirect category and one in the Late Direct group. There were no deaths of women with triplets or higher order pregnancies in this
triennium.
The 10th revision of the International Classifi cation of Diseases recommends that live and stillbirths at 22
weeks or more gestation should be included in all perinatal statistics. To date, this Report has used the UK
defi nition of stillbirth, i.e. deaths at 24 weeks or more completed gestation, the numbers for which are given
in Table 1.5. If the UK stillbirth defi nition were extended to 22 weeks there would have been an additional
four women who died from Indirect causes and one from Coincidental causes who were delivered between
22-23 completed weeks of gestation. In each case the baby was stillborn.
Place of delivery
The majority of the 230 women who died from Direct or Indirect maternal causes and who gave birth at 24
or more completed weeks of gestation delivered in a consultant led maternity unit, as shown in Table 1.6.
All
11