ABSTRACT
Introduction: Maternal mortality is a preventable tragedy; measuring maternal mortality and identifying its causes is essential, and should be calculated regularly for the purpose of planning, monitoring, and evaluation of provided maternal health care
Objectives: To calculate maternal morality ratio, identify causes of maternal mortality, quality of care indicators such as maternal mortality index, case fatality rate and direct obstetric case fatality rate and to identify the main its in medical records
Methodology: A descriptive study was done through reviewing the records maternal mortality cases in the hospital using validated specific criteria published in WHO bulletin [2000] and data of cases that were admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit was collected for one [2012], followed by performing dissemination meetings
Results: In year 2012, there were 479 vaginal deliveries and 9, 908 caesarean sections, and 20,887 live births. The Maternal morality ratio was [225/100,000]. The Leading causes of maternal death were obstetric hemorrhage [38.3%], complications after caesarean sections, [27.7%] and pre-eclampsia/ eclampsia [23.4%].The age of maternal mortality was 29.3 +/- 8.5. Nearly half [42%] of the deaths occurred during vacation days. Quality indicators revealed poor quality of health care. The main deficits in the medical records included no recording of time of informing staff members and start of management, observational chart and management plan
Conclusions and recommendations: Maternal mortality is alarmingly high. Obstetric hemorrhage and complications after caesarean section were the two main causes of death that require strict and quick management protocols