This chapter is based mainly on Pregnancy Loss and the Death of a Baby: Guidelines for Professionals. Women want to be cared for by skilled staff who show empathy and support for them and their partner, and who give them privacy and time. Several publications are available that provide guidance and set standards for the care of women and families experiencing pregnancy loss. Clear pathways between secondary care and the primary care team are essential to ensure that bereaved parents receive good care at all times. Staffing levels should ensure that parents receive continuity of carers. Carers must have training to enable them to support grieving parents, and must themselves be well supported. The bereavement service as a whole should be audited regularly to ensure that it provides comprehensive, culturally sensitive management and support for families who have experienced an early or mid-pregnancy loss, stillbirth or neonatal death.

The Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths (CEMD) produced triennial reports entitled "Why Mothers Die" from 1952 up to and including the report for 1997/9. Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) has not only continued the Why Mothers Die report and the Stillbirth Neonatal and Postnatal Mortality report but also undertakes focused enquiries e.g. The Diabetes Study. This chapter dicusses the main causes for maternal death, fetal and neonatal death, and the recommendations for anaesthesia services from the most recent "Why Mothers Die" (2000-2002) report. The major causes of indirect maternal deaths reported in the last triennium were cardiac, psychiatric and malignancies. Both stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates are higher in women in socially deprived areas and in women of Black or Asian ethnicity. Anaesthetists should be involved in the care of high-risk patients from early in pregnancy and a management plan made for the care of these women.