Clinico-Pathological Co-Relation of Maternal Deaths in A Tertiary Care Centre, Southern Maharashtra

Abstract

Introduction: Maternal mortality is an indicator of the quality of obstetric care in a community directly reflecting the utilization of health care services available. This study was conducted to study pathogenesis and morphological changes in various organs with clinic-pathological co-relation of maternal death in rural areas of south Maharashtra. Methodology: A retrospective study of all the cases of maternal deaths that underwent a pathological autopsy in tertiary health care centre from January 2009 till June 2014. Results: Out of 93 eligible cases 73.11% died due to direct obstetrics causes, 24.84% died due to indirect causes and in 2 cases the cause was unknown. Hemorrhage from genital tract (31.18%) followed by pregnancy induced hypertension (15.05) were the common causes of maternal mortality; while indirect causes like anemia also contributed to the maternal deaths. Conclusion: Direct obstetric causes like hemorrhage from genital tract in previously anaemic patients were the most common cause of death in our study thus intensive efforts with proper health education need to be taken in these areas to have good healthy mothers with minimum complications and reduce the maternal mortality in developing countries like India.

Keywords

• Maternal deaths
• Hemorrhage
• Pregnancy induced hypertension
• Anemia