The risk of childbearing re-evaluated

To determine the completeness of reporting of maternal deaths after live born deliveries in Georgia for 1975 and 1976, we matched death certificates with corresponding birth certificates for women of reproductive age. For these two years, more intensive searching led to our finding a minimum of a 27 per cent higher number of maternal deaths than that found by routine death certificate surveillance. When the delivery-death interval was not restricted to 42 days, use of the record linkage method led to a 50 per cent increase in reporting of maternal deaths. We recommend that special efforts be made to obtain more complete reporting of all pregnancy-related deaths and that completeness of reporting be periodically evaluated for all states.