A maternal "near-miss" case

Abstract

The term maternal "near-miss" refers to women who have escaped death either due to chance or due to good health care after experiencing severe life-threatening problems during pregnancy, labour or after termination of pregnancy. A "nearmiss" event involving a third gravida with placenta praevia leading to severe antepartum and postpartum haemorrhage, disseminated intravascular coagulation, shock, and respiratory failure managed succesfully by team consisting of obstetricians, anaesthetists, transfusion medicine specialists and critical care experts is reported here. The aim of the report is to stress the need of patient education, importance of emergency transportation and availability of multidisciplinary team and adequate blood for transfusion at all levels of health care system.

Keywords

• Near – miss
• obstetric haemorrhage
• Maternal morbidity
• Maternal mortality