MAMA Academy Responds to MBRRACE-UK 2026 Report: Maternal Deaths Stall as Inequalities Deepen

MAMA Academy, the UK’s Safer Pregnancy Charity, responds to the latest confidential enquiry into maternal deaths and calls for urgent, systemic action.

Published on: 11/09/2026

Yesterday, MBRRACE-UK published its thirteenth annual report, Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care 2026, examining the deaths of women during pregnancy and up to one year after birth across the UK and Ireland between 2022 and 2024.

The findings make for difficult reading. Despite years of national reviews, inquiries, and promises of change, maternal mortality has not improved. In fact, the UK has failed to meet its own target to halve maternal deaths by 2025 – and some women continue to pay for that failure with their lives.

The headline figures

The report found that 252 women died during pregnancy or up to six weeks after the end of pregnancy in the UK between 2022 and 2024, equivalent to a maternal mortality rate of 12.8 per 100,000 maternities. While there was no statistically significant change compared with the previous reporting period, the rate remains around 20% higher than in 2009-2011 – the baseline against which the government’s halving ambition was set.

Importantly, the rise cannot be blamed on COVID-19. Deaths from COVID-19 dropped significantly to just six women in this period. When those deaths are excluded, rates of indirect maternal deaths are still significantly higher than the last complete pre-pandemic triennium. The problem runs deeper than the pandemic.

Leading causes: the same dangers, the same missed chances

The leading causes of maternal death during pregnancy and up to six weeks after birth remained unchanged:

• Thrombosis and thromboembolism (blood clots) – the single biggest killer
• Cardiac disease – the second most common cause
• Psychiatric causes – including suicide and substance use

Between six weeks and one year after birth, suicide remained the leading cause of maternal death. Overall, psychiatric causes accounted for approximately one-third of all late maternal deaths. This is not new information. What is devastating is how little has changed.

Inequalities are not just persistent – they are widening

The report’s most searing finding is that the women most at risk are the same women who have been most at risk for years.

• Black women remain nearly three times more likely to die than White women
• Asian women also face a significantly elevated risk
• Women aged 35 or older were nearly twice as likely to die as those aged 25-29
• Women in the most deprived areas had almost double the mortality rate of those in the least deprived areas

These are not abstract statistics. They represent real women – mothers, daughters, sisters, friends – who entered maternity care and did not survive it. As Birth Companions noted in their response, these disparities are “stark, long-standing, and in most cases widening.”

A picture of complex lives

For the first time, the confidential enquiries give us a fuller picture of the lives behind the numbers. Reviewers found that:

• 20% of women who died were known to children’s social services
• 47% had known mental health issues
• 18% were known to be using substances
• 21% had experienced domestic abuse prior to or during pregnancy

These overlapping disadvantages – poverty, abuse, poor housing, racism, mental ill health – compound one another. The report makes clear that maternal death is rarely caused by a single factor. It is the result of systems that fail to see the whole woman, and services that fragment just when integration is most needed.

Care that could have been different

Perhaps the most damning finding is this: reviewers believe that improvements to care may have made a difference to the outcome in 61% of deaths reviewed. Only 16% of women were thought to have received good care.

That is not a statistic about individual failing. It is a statistic about systemic failing. About guidelines that are not followed. About warning signs that are missed. About women who are not listened to. About handovers that do not happen. About services that are too stretched to provide the personalised, continuous care that every woman deserves.

Two urgent themes: readiness and response

The report sets out two overarching themes for improving maternity care:

1. Readiness – planning ahead for changing needs

• Anticipate needs early rather than waiting for problems to arise
• Understand each person’s individual circumstances
• Prepare for the growing complexity of maternity care needs
• Train staff in anti-racism and reducing discrimination

2. Response – acting early to avoid delays

• Use early warning tools effectively
• Recognise deterioration promptly and act without delay
• Keep safeguarding at the centre of maternity care
• Improve access to essential medications and contraception

Underpinning both is the insistence that women must be listened to, that care must be personalised, and that different services must work together effectively.

What MAMA Academy is doing

At MAMA Academy, these findings cut close to the bone. We were founded because a preventable stillbirth should never be accepted as “one of those things.” The same principle applies to maternal death. No woman should die because her concerns were dismissed, her deterioration was missed, or the system was too fragmented to keep her safe.

Our Pregnancy Passports and Wellbeing Wallets are already in the hands of women across more than 100 NHS Trusts, giving them the information and confidence to seek help when something feels wrong. Our MAMA Pregnancy Helpline provides a lifeline for women navigating anxiety, complex pregnancies, or the isolating journey of pregnancy after loss.

But tools alone are not enough. That is why we campaign for systemic reform: for the abolition of unsafe growth charts, for national standardisation of fetal growth monitoring, for antenatal education that reflects the realities of birth today, and for maternal safety to remain a statutory priority.

We contributed to the National Maternity Inquiry chaired by Baroness Amos, and we continue to feed into the government’s Maternity Action Plan. The MBRRACE-UK findings must now inform that work with real urgency.

A call for honesty and action

We are tired of reading the same recommendations, year after year, while the numbers refuse to shift. We are tired of seeing Black women, Asian women, older women, deprived women, and women with complex social needs bear a disproportionate burden of harm.

The 2026 report is not just another dataset. It is a call for honesty. Honesty about where systems are failing. Honesty about whose voices are not being heard. Honesty about the resources and political will required to make maternity care safe for everyone.

At MAMA Academy, we stand with the families whose lives have been shattered by maternal death. We stand with the midwives and doctors working under impossible pressure to keep women safe. And we stand ready to work with anyone – in government, in the NHS, in parliament, in communities – who is serious about making change happen.

The full MBRRACE-UK report, including the State of the Nation summary, lay summary and infographics, is available here.

For media enquiries: contact@mamaacademy.org.uk | 07427 851670