Pregnancy-associated acute kidney injury (PrAKI) is a sudden deterioration in kidney function that occurs during pregnancy or in the six weeks after birth. It is one of the most serious and most preventable complications in maternity care.

It kills mothers and babies.
In some settings, maternal mortality in women with PrAKI reaches 37%. One in three of their babies will not survive.

It is 30 times more common where resources are least.
The burden falls hardest on women in low- and middle-income countries where dialysis, creatinine testing and specialist care are least available.

It is being missed.
PrAKI is under-recognised because its early signs overlap with normal pregnancy changes. If one in six women with a PrAKI alert in the UK receives no clinical response, the gap in lower-resource settings is unimaginable.

Surviving is not the end of it.
Women who survive PrAKI face a 22-fold increased risk of heart failure and a 23-fold increased risk of stroke even when kidney function appears to recover.

It happens in the complications you already know.
Pre-eclampsia, haemorrhage and sepsis are among the most common causes of PrAKI. The kidney is forgotten. It is not a separate problem, it is part of the same crisis.

What is PrAKI?