Pregnancy and childbirth in the UK

Save the Children’s annual ‘State of the World’s Mothers’  reports that women in the UK are more than twice as likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth as those in other European countries.

Britain failed to rank in the top 20 places to be a mother, for the third consecutive year, coming 24th globally.

Countries are then ranked on five key factors – risk of maternal death, under five mortality rate, educational status, economic achievement and political status.

Experts said the poor rating was partially due to higher infant and mother mortality rates than in other parts of Europe.

The UK was ranked 30th out of 179 countries on maternal health, with women facing a one in 6,900 lifetime risk of maternal death.  This was far greater than Poland (19,800), Austria (19,200) and Belarus (45,200) as well as many other Eastern European countries.

The report also calculated that a child born in the UK was more than twice as likely to die before the age of five as in Iceland or Luxembourg. The UK has not made the top 10 since 2012.