Counting Maternal Deaths and Pregnancy Checkbox

The WHO recommends counting all deaths related to pregnancy to avoid undercounting maternal deaths. The death certificate method was found to undercount maternal deaths globally. To address this issue, the WHO suggested using a pregnancy checkbox on death certificates to identify deaths related to pregnancy. Countries were advised to tick the checkbox if the deceased woman was pregnant at the time of her death or within the past six weeks. Different countries implemented the checkbox recommendation in various ways. In the US, if the pregnancy checkbox was ticked, the death was classified as a maternal death.