Maternal Health Indicators

Pregnancy is considered to be a physiological process but many women lose their lives during the process of pregnancy and child birth due to complications. These complications need to be anticipated, prevented and managed appropriately so as to avert a maternal death. A maternal death cannot occur suddenly and in most of the cases it is preceded by some events which if not recognised timely and managed appropriately lead to maternal death.

A woman’s lifetime risk of death varies depending on the facilities available and the standard of Obstetric care she receives. Maternal mortality ratio (MMR) has been used since decades to report and compare the maternal health care globally. MMR has dropped by 38% from base line in 2017 with the improvement of health care services and the goal for 2030 is set to every country to achieve a further reduction in MMR so that no country should have an MMR of more than 140 per 100,000 live births. To recognize and treat the complications appropriately there emerged criteria for severe maternal morbidity and maternal near miss. These are used interchangeably but there are subtle differences. Morbidity indices are used in recent literature and research to compare the standard of care across the World. Maternal near miss ratio and mortality index are the two important indicators that reflect the maternal health and give scope for improvement. This chapter deals with the indicators of severe maternal morbidity and maternal near-miss and their utility.

Preamble: The dream of every pregnant woman and the prospective mother is to give a healthy child to the family, bring up the child in to an adult and thus contribute the development of the Nation and propagation of human race. Mother is the Nucleus of the family and thus it is very important to save her life in the process of child bearing and rearing.