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

The obese women who died
From the notes available to the Enquiry, the BMI was available for all but 18 of the women who died after
22 weeks’ gestation from Direct or Indirect causes. It was not recorded for 46 women who died earlier
than this either due to complications in early pregnancy such as ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages, or
following a termination of pregnancy.
As can be seen from Table 1.16, 15% of women who died from Direct or Indirect causes and who had
a BMI recorded had BMIs of 35 or over, with half of these having BMIs exceeding 40. A further 12% of
women had BMIs in the range 30-34 and and 24% had BMIs of 25-29. In all, 27% of these women had
BMIs of 30 or more and overall 52% had BMIs of 25 or more.
The causes of death for overweight or obese women are shown in Table 1.17.
Table 1.16
Body Mass Index by Direct and Indirect maternal death for women who had a BMI recorded;
United Kingdom: 2003-05.
BMI
Less
than 20
20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40 or
over
Total with
known BMI
Total with
BMI of 25
or over
n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%) n (%)
Not
stated or
recorded
Direct 9 (9) 36 (36) 23 (23) 12 (12) 9 (9) 10 (10) 99 (100) 54 (55) 33
Indirect 17 (13) 50 (38) 32 (24) 16 (12) 8 (6) 9 (7) 132 (100) 65 (49) 31
Total 26 (11) 86 (37) 55 (24) 28 (12) 17 (7) 19 (8) 231 (100) 119 (52) 64
27