Trends and causes of maternal mortality in a tertiary care hospital over five years: 2013-2017

Trends and causes of maternal mortality

  • Sonia Rafiq
  • Wajeeha Syed Lady Reading Hospital
  • Simi Fayaz Ghaffar
Keywords: Maternal mortality, Maternal mortality rate, Hemorrhage, Hypertension

Abstract

Background and Objective: Maternal death measurement is essential to a country’s wellbeing and development status. In emerging countries like Pakistan, it remains an intimidating and failed public health challenge. Objectives of our audit were to estimate trends and causes of maternal demise in Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, Pakistan.

Methods: Between January 2013 to December 2017, a retrospective study was carried out at Medical Teaching Institute, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar. A structured proforma was used to collect data from the medical records. To detect trends in mother demise maternal mortality ratio was calculated for each year and for all five years, Spss version 23 was used for data analysis.

Results: In the five-year periods 134 deaths were recorded. The maternal mortality during the study period was 431/100,000 live births. An unstable trend in mortality with two crowning periods in 2013 and 2017 was observed. Hemorrhage persisted as the foremost cause of maternal death over the five years period, accounting for 47.76% deaths followed by hypertension, accounting for 25.37% deaths. An increased risk of 35.08% was observed among women aged 25-29 years, followed by 26.11% in 20-24 years and 23.88% in >30 years.

Conclusion: There is a decreasing trend of maternal death from 2013 to 2016 but a slight increase was noted in 2017. Hemorrhage was the top cause responsible for the maternal death.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.4.1091

How to cite this:
Rafiq S, Syed W, Ghaffar SF. Trends and causes of maternal mortality in a tertiary care hospital over five years: 2013-2017. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35(4):1128-1131. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.4.1091

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published
2019-07-10
How to Cite
Rafiq, S., Syed, W., & Ghaffar, S. F. (2019). Trends and causes of maternal mortality in a tertiary care hospital over five years: 2013-2017: Trends and causes of maternal mortality. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 35(4). https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.4.1091
Section
Original Articles