Maternal death
death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy
Maternal death or maternal mortality is defined in slightly different ways by several different health organizations. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines maternal death as the death of a pregnant mother due to complications related to pregnancy, underlying conditions worsened by the pregnancy or management of these conditions. This can occur either while she is pregnant or within six weeks of resolution of the pregnancy. The CDC definition of pregnancy-related deaths extends the period of consideration to include one year from the resolution of the pregnancy. Pregnancy associated death, as defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), are all deaths occurring within one year of a pregnancy resolution. Identification of pregnancy associated deaths is important for deciding whether or not the pregnancy was a direct or indirect contributing cause of the death.
There are two main measures used when talking about the rates of maternal mortality in a community or country. These are the maternal mortality ratio and maternal mortality rate, both abbreviated as "MMR". By 2017, the world maternal mortality rate had declined 44% since 1990; however, every day 808 women die from pregnancy or childbirth related causes. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 2017 report, about every 2 minutes a woman dies because of complications due to childbirth or pregnancy.
The public source identifies “Maternal death” as death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Maternal, death and woman.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Maternal death”, the useful work is to connect “death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1339474. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017 and 1990.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maternal death” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.