ABSTRACT
Th e Confi dential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in the United Kingdom report for 2006-08, Saving Mothers’ Lives, highlighted an alarming rise in the number of maternal deaths attributed to sepsis (CMACE 2011). Th is launched the issue of infection-related illness once again into the forefront of the care of mothers and babies. Alongside concerns about the impact of sepsis, questions have been raised about why this increase has occurred and what is the eff ect of infective illness in pregnancy generally. At the same time there has been growing concern about antimicrobial resistance, which means that the drugs used to fi ght a range of infectious diseases are becoming less eff ective (DH 2013). Th e World Health Organization (2014) considers antimicrobial resistance an increasingly serious threat to global public health. It has identifi ed tuberculosis, malaria and the human immunodefi ciency virus (HIV) as particularly problematic, but it also cites the risk of the high proportions of antibiotic resistance in bacteria that cause common infections (e.g. urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections) in all regions of the world.
