Publication:

Maternal near miss and maternal death among women with hypertensive disorders in pregnancy: an observational study in a selected hospital in West Bengal

Background Aim of the this study was to assess the prevalence of hypertensive disorder in pregnancy and the  incidence of maternal death and maternal near miss from the hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and utilization of maternal health care services by them.

Methods An observational study was performed at Purba Medinipur District Hospital, West Bengal from 1st April 2018 to 31st December 2020. The main outcome measures included incidence of potentially life threatening conditions, life threatening conditions maternal near miss cases and mortality developed due to PIH/preeclampsia/eclampsia and utilization of maternal health care services by them.

Results Present study reflected that the prevalence of hypertensive disorder in pregnancy was 9.01% (3543/39310) of total admission. The incidence of maternal mortality due to complication of hypertensive disorder was 7 out of total maternal mortality 30 during that period i.e. 23.3% of total mortality and incidence of MNM was 82 out of total 249 MNM cases during the same period i.e. 32.9% of total MNM cases. Utilization of maternal health care services revealed that there is a scope to increase the service delivery.

Conclusions Health care programmes need to enhance the existing efforts to improve timely health seeking behavior of women. There is a need of better quality antenatal care and extra resources are needed for identification and transportation of the women to reach hospital when the women develops complications. There is also a need of improvement of critical care in women who are suffering from life threatening condition.