Pulmonary embolus and maternal mortality in the antenatal period--evidence of a trend?

An analysis of pulmonary embolus mortality data was undertaken to investigate a putative change in maternal mortality due to pulmonary embolism in the antenatal period of pregnancy. A comparison was made of mortality due to pulmonary embolus for pregnant and non-pregnant women of reproductive age in England and Wales in the four triennia from 1976. During this period the antenatal pulmonary embolus mortality rate remained unchanged, whereas a statistically significant decline in non-pregnancy related pulmonary embolus mortality was observed. A comparison of the mortality trends between the two groups found the difference to be statistically highly significant. These findings strongly suggest that, over the twelve years investigated, women in the antenatal period of pregnancy have not benefited from the reduced risk of death from pulmonary embolus enjoyed by their non-pregnant counterparts.