Maternal Mortality Review Committees: State Laws and Policies
By Guttmacher Institute
Last Updated September 2023
Some states first established maternal mortality review committees (MMRCs) to investigate deaths related to pregnancy in the early 20th century, when rates were the highest on record. These jurisdictions reviewed deaths in an effort to understand why many women died in childbirth and to respond to poor medical practices and inadequate care provided by physicians. Many committees became inactive by the late 1980s, following a decline in maternal deaths for several decades. Since 2016, there has been a resurgence of interest in MMRCs because of increased attention on maternal mortality and the disparate rates of death by race, leading many states to renew or strengthen their review of pregnancy-related deaths.
