ABSTRACT
Between July and September 1983, a two-stage probability survey was conducted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to obtain data on pregnancy outcomes for all women aged 13-49 in 32,215 houses. The survey covered a two-year period, from 11 September 1981 to 10 September 1983. Of the 9,315 women who were pregnant during those two years, 45 died from complications of pregnancy, delivery, and the puerperium. The maternal mortality rate for 1982-83 was estimated to be 566 per 100,000 live births. Mortality was highest for nullipara, the unmarried, women employed as maids/janitresses, and students. The most common cause of death was abortion. It appears that reliable data on maternal mortality can be obtained retrospectively through a probability survey.
PIP: Between July and September 1983, a 2-stage probability survey was conducted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to obtain data on pregnancy outcomes for all women aged 13-49 in 32,215 houses. Previously, information on maternal mortality (MM) had been scare: only 2 hospitals reported figures of 840 and 780 deaths/100,000 live births respectively, in 1970 and 1980. This survey covered a 2-year period from 11 September 1981 to 10 September 1983. All 25 city districts were represented, and a sample of 47 subdistricts was drawn, with the aim of identifying the outcomes of about 10,000 pregnancies, requiring visits to 26,136 houses. A pilot survey was conducted to improve the technic. The survey universe for the actual study was 182,836 persons, reporting 9,954 pregnancies for 9,315 women over 2 years, with 9,155 live births. 45 women died from complications of pregnancy, delivery, and puerperium. Data on cause of death are quite detailed: for 22 of the 24 women dying in a hospital, hospital records were available; for the 15 dying at home, 2 had post mortem documents; 6 women died in transit or outpatient facilities; and many of those in the last 2 categories were diagnosable from description of symptoms. Among direct obstetric causes of death were abortion (13); hemmorage (3); hypertensive disease of pregnancy (3); ruptured uterus (2); anesthetic death (2); puerperal sepsis (1); total 24. There were 21 deaths by indirect obstetric causes, 5 of which were unknown and 7 of which were due to infectious hepatitis, the commonest cause. The MM rate for 1982-83 was estimated at 566/100,000 live births; highest among nullipara, the unmarried, women employed as maids/janitresses, and students. Reliable data on MM can be obtained retrospectively through a probability survey, as demonstrated by this project.
