−20%Improving
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Maternal and childMulti-yearSample Registration System
Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births over a three-year period. A maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.
−6 (−20%) from 30 per 100,000 live births in 2021–23. A move in the better direction.
| Period | Kerala | India | Status | Where in the document |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022–24 | 24 | 87 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2022-24, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 0–50) |
| 2021–23 | 30 | 88 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2021-23, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 2–58) |
| 2020–22 | 18 | 88 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2020-22, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 0–39) |
| 2019–21 | 20 | 93 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2019-21, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 0–43) |
| 2018–20 | 19 | 97 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2018-20, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 0–42) |
Maternal deaths per 100,000 live births over a three-year period. A maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.
The Sample Registration System (SRS) is ORGI's large-scale demographic survey: in about 8,800 randomly selected villages and urban blocks (8,839 sample units covering about 9.0 million people in 2024, roughly 0.6% of the population) a resident part-time enumerator records births and deaths continuously, and an independent supervisor conducts a retrospective half-yearly survey. The two records are matched and unmatched events re-verified in the field (dual record system), which makes SRS India's reference source for vital rates at state level, since civil registration remains incomplete in several states. The sample is redrawn after each census; the frame in use from reference year 2014 is based on Census 2011. Source: SRS Special Bulletin on Maternal Mortality in India for the period, Table 1, MMR column. Causes of every SRS death are assigned by verbal autopsy; because maternal deaths are rare, three years of data are pooled, and each State's count of maternal deaths is multiplied by a correction factor (the ratio of female deaths by age group in SRS to the count yielded by verbal autopsy forms) to allow for under-count, mainly from out-migration. Estimates are published for India and 19 States: the 'EAG and Assam' States (Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand), the South (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu) and Gujarat, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab and West Bengal. The Bulletin's regional subtotals and its 'Other states' residual are not geographies and are not stored. IHO stores each period under its full years (2022-2024) and checks that every value lies inside its printed 95% confidence interval.
Confidence intervals are wide (Kerala 24 in 2022–24, interval 0–50; State intervals are commonly 50–150 points wide), so a State's change from one period to the next is usually within noise. Successive periods share two of their three years, so they are not independent annual changes. No estimate exists for Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, the North-Eastern States other than Assam, or the UTs. Reference years 2020–2021 cover the COVID-19 pandemic: deaths rose sharply in 2021 (India's crude death rate was 7.5 against 6.0 in 2020), and fieldwork was disrupted.
No value in this series has been revised since the observatory first archived it.
India Health Observatory (2026). Maternal mortality ratio, Kerala, 2014–16 to 2022–24 [dataset]. Original data: Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Sample Registration System. https://indiahealthobservatory.com/india/kerala/maternal-mortality-ratio
<iframe src="https://indiahealthobservatory.com/embed/kerala/maternal-mortality-ratio" title="Maternal mortality ratio, Kerala (India Health Observatory)" width="100%" height="440" style="border:0;max-width:760px" loading="lazy"></iframe>
per 100,000 live births. 9 periods. Values exactly as published; nothing interpolated.
| 2017–19 | 30 | 103 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2017-19, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 2–58) |
| 2016–18 | 43 | 113 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2016-18, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 10–77) |
| 2015–17 | 42 | 122 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2015-17, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 9–75) |
| 2014–16 | 46 | 130 | Reported | MMR Bulletin 2014-16, Table 1, p.3, row "Kerala", column MMR (95% CI 12–79) |
Up to 2014–16 the Bulletin pooled Bihar with Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh with Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh with Uttarakhand; those combined rows are not stored, so those six States' series start with 2015–17. No Bulletin exists for 2012–14 or 2013–15. Not comparable in level with WHO/UN MMEIG modelled estimates or with HMIS facility-reported maternal deaths.
How signals are computed from this series: methodology.