ABSTRACT
Infection has been a leading cause of pregnancy-related death in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System since 1987, when reporting began. For this descriptive study, we used 2012–2019 data from the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. Specific subclassifications of infection deaths were analyzed by sociodemographic characteristics, and pregnancy-related mortality ratios (pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births) were calculated for each infection subclassification. The overall pregnancy-related mortality ratio for infection was 2.23. Sepsis was the most frequent subclassification (46.4%) of pregnancy-related infection deaths, followed by other nonpelvic infections (25.2%). Endocarditis deaths had the largest relative increase in pregnancy-related mortality ratio among pregnancy-related infection deaths between 2012 (0.10) and 2019 (0.56). Reporting subclassifications of pregnancy-related infection deaths could improve the ability to focus interventions for reducing pregnancy-related deaths and assessing progress over time.