Maternal mortality: direct or indirect has become irrelevant

Application of the tenth revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to deaths during pregnancy, childbirth, and the puerperium (ICD-Maternal Mortality [MM]) divides maternal deaths into direct obstetric deaths (ie, deaths resulting from the obstetric complications of pregnancy, interventions, omissions, incorrect treatment, or a chain of events resulting from any of the above) and indirect obstetric deaths (ie, deaths resulting from a previous existing disease, or disease that developed during pregnancy that was not due to direct obstetric causes, but was aggravated by physiological effects of pregnancy).