Background: The investigation of severe maternal morbidity (SAMM) and maternal near miss (NM) and associated risk factors is important for the global reduction of maternal mortality. This study investigated the prevalence of SAMM/NM cases and the associated risk factors in two reference maternity hospitals in a capital city in Northeast-Brazil. Methods: A cross-sectional study with a nested cas...

BACKGROUND The investigation of severe maternal morbidity (SAMM) and maternal near miss (NM) and associated risk factors is important for the global reduction of maternal mortality. This study investigated the prevalence of SAMM and NM cases and the associated risk factors in two reference maternity hospitals in a capital city in Northeast-Brazil. METHODS A cross-sectional study with a nested...

Nepal experienced a steep decline in maternal mortality between 1996 and 2006, which had again dropped by 2010. The aim of this study was to investigate any trends in factors that may be responsible for this decline. The study was based on a secondary data analysis of maternity care services and socio-demographic variables extracted from the Nepal Demographic Health Surveys (1996, 2001, 2006 an...

OBJECTIVE to analyse the impact of in-hospital care on severe maternal morbidity using WHO's near-miss approach in the low-resource, high mortality setting of Zanzibar's referral hospital. SETTING Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, a tertiary care facility, in Zanzibar, Tanzania. METHODS We identified all cases of morbidity and mortality in women admitted within 42 days after the end of pregnancy at Mna...

This is an attempt to measure maternal mortality in England from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Data are from the registers of three Somerset parishes in the West of England. The author attempts to measure maternal mortality firstly by comparing differential mortality of husbands and wives over the first 15 years of marriage. Secondly, he attempts to calculate it through a limited ...

Maternal mortality remains a major challenge in Nigeria. This retrospective study was conceptualized to document the number and pattern of obstetric deaths at the Central Hospital, Benin City, over a ten year period, to identify common causes of maternal deaths and proffer relevant interventions. The overall maternal mortality ratio (MMR) was 518/100,000. MMR was 30 times higher in unbooked as ...

According to UNICEF estimates for Nigeria, maternal mortality ratio is 1100 per 100,000 live births, antenatal care coverage 47 percent, institutional delivery rate 33 percent, and each woman bears six children on the average. Reducing the high maternal mortality ratio, which is the prime concern, has hitherto concentrated on transforming the health system through bringing resources and experti...

BACKGROUND The paucity of human resources for health buoyed by excessive workloads has been identified as being responsible for poor quality obstetric care, which leads to high maternal mortality in Nigeria. While there is anecdotal and qualitative research to support this observation, limited quantitative studies have been conducted to test the association between the number and density of hum...

How relevant is religion to our understanding of maternal health (MH) service utilization in sub-Saharan Africa? We ask this question mainly because while the effect of religion on some aspects of reproductive behavior (e.g., fertility, contraception) has not gone unnoticed in the region, very few studies have examined the possible link with MH service utilization. Understanding this link in th...