[Various problems concerning maternal mortality during pregnancy]

In the autopsy material of the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Semmelweis Medical University--90,000 cases in 25 years (1950-1975)--508 cases of death in the period of gestation have occurred. Author have analysed this material and have established, that in every second case the death occurred due to criminal abortion, in every fifth case due to the complications of the pregnancy and in every third case due to the complications of delivery. By means of trend-calculations it was further established that in the autopsy material of the Department the number of the sudden natural death of women in the reproductive age during the 25 years remained on the same level, but the number of death cases connected with gestation decreased. In the latter group: the number of death cases due to abortion and complications of pregnancy decreased significantly, number of lethal cases due to complications of delivery remained at the same level. Data of the analysis are compared to the data reported in the literature. Some questions--the cause of the death, the criminality when abortions are concerned, questions of the treatment and the responsibility of physicians are also discussed. These investigations seem to evidence that on the base of the evaluation of a large autopsy material the legal medicine can reveal valuable data for the preventive medicine.