Maternal mortality is the death of a mother at any stage of pregnancy and up to one year after birth. Perinatal loss is the death of a baby during pregnancy or shortly after birth, including stillbirth, miscarriage and neonatal death.
Healthcare teams respond to maternal and perinatal loss in three ways: caring for families with compassion, reviewing what happened, and reporting deaths so they can be examined and learned from across NSW.
Caring for families after a loss resources
- Care around stillbirth and neonatal death clinical practice guideline
- Stillbirth Centre for Research care around loss resources
- Sands Australian principles of bereavement care
- NSW perinatal postmortem service
- Grief support services
- NSW Birth deaths and marriages – Perinatal loss
- Pregnancy and Perinatal Loss Guideline (GL2025_016)
- Stillbirth Foundation Australia
Some of the above resources are available to order via Finsbury Green.
Reporting a maternal death, stillbirth and neonatal death
All maternal deaths must be reported to the Clinical Excellence Commission. This includes deaths during pregnancy and up to one year after birth (late maternal deaths). Report under the Reporting of Identifying and Reporting of Maternal Deaths in New South Wales (PD2026_019). Some deaths must also be reported to the Coroner under the Coroners Cases policy (PD2024_036) and the Coroners Act 2009.
The Perinatal Mortality Review Committee reviews stillbirths and neonatal deaths that have statewide implications. It identifies causes, trends and learnings, and recommends improvements in perinatal care. The committee reports to our chief executive and is established under the Health Services Act.
Reporting a perinatal death
Report and review perinatal deaths under the Investigation, Review and Reporting of Perinatal Deaths policy (PD2022_046).
Reports
- NSW Mothers and Babies Reports
- National Mothers & Babies Overview - Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Maternal and perinatal loss education
- NSW IMproving Perinatal mortality Review and Outcomes Via Education (IMPROVE) through My Health Learning. Course code: 429868305.
- IMPROVE workshops – face-to-face training on clinical care around the time of stillbirth or neonatal death.
- Conversations about perinatal port-mortem through My Health Learning. Course code: 429868305.
Contact our team to become an IMPROVE educator or host a workshop.