Naghmana Akbar, Nabeela Shami, Shaheena Asif.
Maternal Mortality in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital.
J Coll Physicians Surg Pak Jan ;12(7):429-31.

Objective: To identify preventable factors responsible for maternal mortality. Design: A retrospective study. Place and Duration of Study: Jinnah Hospital Lahore from July 1998 to December 2000. Patients and Methods: The patients were randomly selected from Gynaecology outpatient and emergency departments. Referred patients from other units were also included. A record of patient`s age, parity, antenatal hospital booking status, and the level of skill of care providers at rural/urban settings along with distance from the hospital was noted. Results: There were 31 maternal deaths during the study period. The identifiable factors were hemorrhage in 18 (58.06%) patients, hypertension in 8 (25.80%) and sepsis in 5 (16.12%) cases resulting from induced abortion and puerperal sepsis. 25/31 patients were unbooked and brought in emergency department. Conclusion: Most maternal deaths can be prevented by providing skilled obstetric care, at the time of delivery, by emergency treatment and proper management of complications. Safe motherhood requires no costly technology but only appropriate setting of resources.

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