The latest MBRRACE-UK Saving Lives, Improving Mothers’ Care 2026 report looks at the deaths of women and people during pregnancy and in the year after pregnancy. Its purpose is to understand what happened, identify where care could have been different and help prevent future deaths.
Maternal death remains rare in the UK. But every death matters and careful review can lead to safer care for many more women and people in the future.
This year’s report includes important new information about group B Strep and maternal infection.
What does the report say about group B Strep?
The report includes cases where group B Strep infection was identified as the cause of maternal deaths reviewed as part of MBRRACE-UK’s infection enquiries. It also highlights important lessons about recognising and responding to serious infection.
This is a serious finding, but it is important to put it into context.
Group B Strep is a common bacterium which normally lives in the body and usually causes no harm. Most women and people who carry group B Strep will not know it is there. It can sometimes cause serious infection during or after pregnancy, but this is uncommon.
The report is not saying that carrying group B Strep is dangerous in itself. It shows why health services must be ready to recognise serious infection and respond quickly if a woman or person becomes unwell.
What could be different?
One of the most important messages is that earlier recognition of infection, timely assessment and prompt treatment can make a real difference. Assessors reviewing the infection deaths felt that different care may have made a difference in almost all of the direct infection deaths reviewed.
Pregnant and recently pregnant women and people can become seriously unwell quickly, even when they initially appear stable. MBRRACE-UK says health professionals should monitor them carefully, look for changes over time and act promptly when there are signs that someone’s health is getting worse.
The report also makes a new national recommendation that every hospital setting should have a way to provide rapid access to antibiotics so that suspected sepsis can be treated at the point of care. This recommendation applies to suspected sepsis more widely, not only to group B Strep infection.
Women, people and families should never have to carry the main responsibility for making maternity care safe. Health professionals need the right staffing, training, systems and medicines around them so they can recognise infection and act without delay. This reflects MBRRACE-UK’s wider message that the burden of ensuring safe maternity care should not rest primarily on women and families.
Why this matters to GBSS
We often talk about the impact of group B Strep on babies. This report is an important reminder that, although uncommon, group B Strep can also cause serious infection in women and people during or after pregnancy.
Understanding how group B Strep contributed to the deaths reviewed matters. Just as importantly, we need to understand where earlier recognition of infection, timely assessment and prompt treatment could have made a difference.
We support MBRRACE-UK’s work to learn from every maternal death. But identifying the learning is only part of the job. That learning must be acted on.
Behind every finding in this report is a woman or person, a baby and a family living with the consequences of what happened.
The best way to honour them is to learn from what happened and turn that learning into safer care for women, people and babies in the future.
You can read the latest MBRRACE-UK maternal report on the https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/mbrrace-uk/reports/maternal-reports/maternal-report-2022-2024.
For trusted information about group B Strep, including group B Strep during and after pregnancy, visit the GBSS information and support pages.
