Maternal Mortality in 8 European Countries With Enhanced Surveillance Systems: Descriptive Population-based Study

Abstract

(BMJ. 2022;379:e070621) Maternal mortality rate (MMR) helps indicate the quality of national maternal care, and international comparisons highlight maternal health disparities. While maternal mortality has historically been compared using vital statistics, recent studies have shown those to have limitations and lack validity. As a result, several European countries initiated an enhanced surveillance system for maternal mortality. The new approach standardizes and optimizes identification, documentation, classification, and data collection from every maternal death. The International Network of Obstetric Survey Systems (INOSS) has gathered and compared the population-based data. The aim of this study was to compare national maternal mortality patterns between European countries using data from the new enhanced maternal mortality surveillance systems.