Common postpartum complications

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), common causes of pregnancy-related deaths are:

• Diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels, called cardiovascular diseases.
• Other medical conditions often present before childbirth.
• A serious infection such as sepsis.
• Heavy bleeding after giving birth, called hemorrhage.
• A disease of the heart muscle called cardiomyopathy. This condition makes it hard for the heart to pump blood to the rest of the body.
• A blockage in one of the blood vessels in the lungs that carry blood from the heart to the lungs. Blood clots that travel to the lungs from the legs, called thrombotic pulmonary embolism, often are the cause of the blockage.
• Stroke.
• High blood pressure, called hypertension, or high blood pressure linked with protein spilled into the urine during pregnancy, called preeclampsia.
• A rare condition that happens when the fluid that surrounds the baby during pregnancy, called amniotic fluid, or fetal material such as fetal cells enters a pregnant person's bloodstream. This is called amniotic fluid embolism.
• Problems with the medicines used to prevent pain during delivery or surgery, called anesthetic.

Sometimes the cause of a pregnancy-related death is not known.