April 2020 · Volume 9 · Issue 4 Page 1528 International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology Behuria S et al. Int J Reprod Contracept Obstet Gynecol. 2020 Apr;9(4):1528-1531 www.ijrcog.org pISSN 2320-1770 | eISSN 2320-1789 Original Research Article Study of maternal mortality in a tertiary care hospital in a tribal KBK area of Odisha, India Sasmita Behuria, Jyoti Narayan Puhan*, Subhra Ghosh, Bhabani Sankar Nayak INTRODUCTION Maternal mortality is defined as the death of any woman while being pregnant or within 42 completed days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration or site of pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy, but not from accidental or incidental causes. 1 Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) is defined internationally as the maternal mortality rate per 1 lakh live births. Maternal mortality remains one of the most daunting public health problems in India. Even today 20% global maternal deaths occur in India. 2 MMR for India was 301 per 100,000 live births by Sample Registration Survey (SRS) 2003 estimate and came down to 167 by SRS survey 2013 estimate. 3 Maternal mortality is ascribed usually to complications that generally occur during or around labor and cannot be accurately predicted. The direct causes of maternal mortality, that is, hemorrhage, unsafe abortion, eclampsia, obstructed labor, infection, and others account for about three-fourths of maternal deaths. The remaining ABSTRACT Background: Pregnancy, although being considered a physiological state, carries risk of serious maternal morbidity and at times death. This is due to various complications that may occur during pregnancy, labor, or thereafter. The major causes of maternal mortality are mostly preventable through regular antenatal check-up, proper diagnosis, and management of labor complications. Therefore, the factors at different levels affecting the use of these services need to be clearly understood. The aim is to study the incidence of MMR, assess the epidemiological aspects, causes of maternal mortality and avoidable factors that can prevent maternal deaths. Methods: A retrospective hospital-based study was conducted in obstetrics and gynecology department, SLN MCH, a tertiary care referral hospital in a tribal area of southern Odisha over a period of 2 years from April 2017 to March 2019. Results: A total of 108 deaths were analyzed over 2 years period and MMR was calculated to be 1124/1 lakh live births. Most of the maternal deaths occurred in the age group of 20-24 years (35.1%), majority of maternal deaths were observed in multipara (46.3%), 70.3% deaths occurred within 24 hours of admission. Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (37%) were the leading direct cause followed by hemorrhage (14.8%) and sepsis (11.1%). Among the indirect causes jaundice (7.4%) and anaemia (3.7%) were the leading cause. Conclusions: MMR in our study was very high as compared to national average of 167/1,00,000 live births, being a tertiary care hospital as most of the patients were referred from peripheral centers. Most maternal deaths are preventable by intensive health education, basic obstetric care for all, strengthening referral and communication system and emphasizing on overall safe motherhood. Keywords: Anaemia, Hypertensive disorder, Maternal mortality ratio Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Saheed Laxman Nayak Medical College, Koraput, Odisha, India Received: 21 November 2019 Accepted: 30 December 2019 *Correspondence: Dr. Jyoti Narayan Puhan, E-mail: jyoti.scb87@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-1770.ijrcog20201217