After an alarming count of five maternal deaths in only less than a week, the Italian government has sent its investigative teams to four hospitals in the north of the country. The women were between seven to nine months pregnant.
As reported by The Guardian, the most recent case was of the 30-year-old Giovanna Lazzari who died on New Year's Eve at a hospital in Brescia during an emergency caesarean operation. Two days prior, Lazzari had been admitted due to a fever. She was eight months pregnant.
Robert Coppini, Lazzari's husband, told Ansa news agency that she got an SMS from his wife in the middle of the night, complaining about serious pain and not getting attention from the doctors. Coppini was later asked to come to the facility and was informed that his wife had lost the baby, and later died from hemorrhage as she was supposedly in surgery for the removal of the fetus.

Other cases were Marta Lazzarin, who, according to the reports had already lost her baby when her waters broke and then subsequently suffered a heart attack. She was at seven months. Angela Nesta also suffered a heart attack shortly after giving birth to a stillborn baby. Anna Massignan died during a caesarean operation on a Christmas day. The fifth case was of an unnamed 23-year-old from southern Italy who died at full term while at home with an unknown cause.

Through a postmortem caesarean, the doctors were able to save the baby. Italy has a reputation for safe childbirth, which shocked the whole country as to why they've been shaken by a series of deaths. Italy's birth rate has recently fallen significantly. The UK ratio falling from 10 to nine over the same amount of time is still more than twice as high in Italy. The US has a stable ratio of 14.