Pregnancy outcome among women who delivered in a secondary care hospital in Ondo, Nigeria

Abstract

Objective: The objective was to review the pregnancy outcome of women who delivered in State Specialist Hospital, Ondo, Ondo State, Nigeria.
Methods: One year hospital-based retrospective analysis was conducted in State Specialist Hospital Ondo, a secondary care hospital in southwestern Nigeria. The records of women who delivered in the hospital from 1^st January to 31^st December 2010 were reviewed. Maternal age, booking status, mode of delivery, maternal mortality, perinatal outcome and the sex of the babies delivered were assessed.
Results: Two thousand seven hundred and six (2706) women delivered during the period under review with 2577(95.2%) live births and 11(0.4%) maternal deaths with a maternal mortality ratio of 427 per 100,000 live births. Hemorrhage, puerperal sepsis and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy were the leading causes of maternal deaths. The maternal age range was between 14 and 48years with the mean age of 28.2±5.3 (CI 28.0-28.4). A total of 452(16.7%) had cesarean delivery, 2239(82.7%) women had spontaneous vaginal delivery and 15(0.6%) had operative vaginal delivery (ventouse delivery). A total of 2281(84.3%) were booked patients while 425 (15.7%) were unbooked patients. The maternal mortality ratio was 9 times higher in unbooked patients than in booked patients, more males were delivered than females.
Conclusion: The relatively reduced maternal mortality ratio in this hospital based study can be attributed to availability of free antenatal care and delivery services. The causes of maternal deaths in this study are preventable. There should be an improvement in the quality of care for obstetric emergencies especially for unbooked patients, and more health care providers are needed in giving quality care to these women.