Failure to recognise ectopic pregnancy causing women’s deaths, says expert

Prof Marian Knight says action needed to improve diagnosis of condition in which fertilised egg implants itself outside womb

• Worst thing that's ever happened to me': the trauma of ectopic pregnancy

Women are dying or suffering avoidable harm because of a failure to recognise ectopic pregnancy, one of the country's leading experts on maternal health has said.

Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Marian Knight of the University of Oxford, who leads a national research programme on maternal deaths, called for action to improve diagnosis of the acute, life-threatening condition, in which a fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb, normally in the fallopian tube. Ectopic pregnancies are never viable and if left untreated can result in the tube rupturing, causing potentially fatal internal bleeding.