A third of UK women who died during or after pregnancy known to children’s services, study finds

The study found 65% of the women who died and had been in contact with children’s social services had experienced domestic abuse before or during their pregnancy. Photograph: Roos Koole/Getty Images

A third of women who have died during, or in the year after, pregnancy were known to children’s social care services, with a fifth of these deaths being the result of suicide, according to research which is the first of its kind.

Between 2014 and 2022, 1,451 women died during pregnancy or within a year of giving birth, with 420 of these women having been in contact with children’s social care services, according to analysis of data from the maternal, newborn, and infant clinical outcome review programme provided by MBBRACE-UK.