Saving Lives, Improving Mothers' Care - Maternal death report released

A report released earlier this month by MBRRACE-UK: Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK has found that, although there are now fewer pregnancy related deaths, care in respect of women’s mental health requires significant improvement.

The report, ‘Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care’, which looked at maternal deaths from 2011 – 2013, found that around a quarter of maternal deaths between six weeks and a year after birth are related to mental health problems, with one in seven of these women committing suicide.

The most recent report of Bliss, the prematurity charity: ‘Bliss baby report 2015: hanging in the balance’, found that in 30 per cent of neonatal units in England, parents had no access to mental health support. This is despite the fact that 40 per cent of mothers who give birth prematurely suffer from postnatal depression, far higher than the national average.