Creating an equitable evidence base for quality and safety in remote antenatal care

Abstract

Creating an equitable evidence base for quality and safety in remote antenatal care By international standards, pregnancy and childbirth are very safe in the UK. However, when poor pregnancy and birth outcomes happen, they are spread unevenly across the population. Recent reports from confidential enquiries into maternal deaths and morbidity in the UK and Ireland (MBRRACE-UK) reveal a disturbing pattern of increasing inequality.(1) Poor outcomes are associated with ethnicity and adverse socio-economic circumstances. Black women (including African, Caribbean and other Black ethnic backgrounds) are five times more likely to die as a result of complications in their pregnancy than White women.(1) For women of mixed ethnicity, the risk relative to White women is threefold, and for Asian women it is double. Women