A report from Nuffield Trust shows that black women and those with mental health conditions are most likely to face health complications in the post-partum period.

Around one in five mothers attend A&E in the year after they give birth, a report from the Nuffield Trust shows. Black women, those from the most deprived areas and mothers with mental health conditions are among those more likely to receive emergency care than average. 

Researchers examined which groups are most likely to face health complications during the post-partum period. Using NHS data, they looked at about 1.6 million births that occurred between April 2021 and March 2024, which equates to about 1.5 million people having babies. 

Many of the emergency hospital trips happened in the very early stages of motherhood. One in ten occurred in the first two weeks after birth and almost a quarter within the first six weeks. 

The three most recorded reasons were abdominal pain, chest pain and bleeding from the vagina. However, no reasons were recorded for 21% of visits, which report lead, Sarah Scobie, described as “appalling” and a clear area of improvement for the NHS to understand the health of new mothers better. 

Women of black ethnicities were more likely than average to go to hospital in an emergency when their babies were less than a year old. For example, 27% of black Caribbean, 26% of black African and 28% of mothers of ‘any other’ black ethnicity had an emergency care visit. That’s compared with 23% of white British, 22% of white Irish and 19% of mothers with ‘other’ white ethnicities.

Meanwhile, emergency care visits followed 27% of deliveries in the most deprived areas and became less frequent as deprivation fell. And in nearly 70% of deliveries, mothers had at least one pre-existing health condition, many of which, such as obesity and diabetes, are potentially preventable. 

Health inequalities

Researchers also noted that 30% of mothers with a mental health condition visited A&E, compared with 19% of those without one. 

Most visits did not result in admission, suggesting some could have been avoided with better support in the community. 

The recent Amos Review into maternity and neonatal services highlighted the inequalities faced by women during pregnancy, particularly black women, with racism and discrimination embedded in the system. 

The report shows that “health inequalities follow women into the next phase of motherhood,” Scobie, deputy director of research at Nuffield Trust, said. 

Scobie urged policymakers and NHS leaders to examine whether post-birth A&E visits could be avoided with better community care and improved preventative support well before birth. 

Strategies to improve the health of girls and women must be prioritised alongside addressing the failures in maternity care, report co-author Veena Raleigh, who is a senior fellow at the King’s Fund, said. 

Raleigh argued that “adverse maternal outcomes” are strongly associated with conditions that are preventable, such as obesity and hypertension, and are more common among deprived and some ethnic minority communities. 

“Girls and women from these communities are at risk even before they embark on pregnancy,” Raleigh said.