Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
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Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol · May 2005
Comparative StudyAn assessment of pregnancy-related mortality in the United States.
Deaths from pregnancy complications remain an important public health concern. Nationally, two systems collect information on the number of deaths and characteristics of the women who died from complications of pregnancy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reports maternal mortality through the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS); CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion's Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System (PMSS) conducts epidemiological surveillance of pregnancy-related deaths. ⋯ From the 1471 unduplicated deaths classified as maternal or pregnancy-related from either reporting system, we estimated a combined pregnancy-related mortality ratio of 12.6/100,000 live births for 1995-97, compared with 11.9 for PMSS only and 7.5 for NVSS only. The identification and classification of these events is dependent on the provision of complete and accurate cause-of-death information on death certificates. Changes in the guidelines for coding maternal deaths under ICD-10 may change the relationship in the number of deaths resulting from pregnancy reported by these two systems.