A study of maternal mortality in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Maternal mortality is a strong indicator for measuring the health care provided to the women by any society. Motherhood is an event of joy and celebrations for every family. It is tragic that deaths occur during pregnancy and childbirth and most are preventable. The aim is to study the incidence of maternal mortality, assess the epidemiological aspects, causes of maternal mortality and avoidable factors that can prevent maternal deaths.Methods: A retrospective hospital based study was conducted in the Department of OBG, Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences, a tertiary level health care referral centre in Kalaburgi, Karnataka, India over a period of 2 years from January, 2016 to December, 2017.Results: A total of 65 deaths were analysed. The mortality rate in study period was 364 per 1,00,000 live births. Maximum maternal deaths were reported in the age group 20-24 years. More deaths were reported in multiparous women (55.8%) as compared to primiparous women (44.2%). Most of them were unbooked cases (60%). The classic triad of haemorrhage (38.4%), hypertensive disorders (29.2%) and sepsis (12%) were the major direct causes of maternal death. Anemia was the major indirect cause of death. Other indirect causes of maternal death were jaundice, heart disease, respiratory disease and epilepsy.Conclusions: Majority of maternal deaths were preventable by proper antenatal care, early detection of high risk pregnancies and their timely referral to tertiary care centre