Maternal mortality in Benghazi: a clinicoepidemiological study

We conducted a clinicoepidemiological study of 14 maternal deaths out of 79,981 live births at Al-Jamahiriya Hospital, Benghazi between 1993 and 1997. The maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births was 17.5. The reproductive profile of these women was: mean age 31.5 +/- 6.9 years, mean parity 4.5, mean birth interval 14.6 +/- 7.0 months, mean gestation 27.7 +/- 14.6 weeks and mean haemoglobin 9.3 +/- 2.1 g/dL. None of the women had prebooked their delivery, 50% had preconceptional medical or obstetric risk factors, around 70% were anaemic, almost all were admitted with serious medical conditions and > 50% required surgical intervention. The main underlying medical causes of death were: hypertensive disease of pregnancy (28.6%), haemorrhage (14.3%), pulmonary embolism (14.3%) and brain tumour (14.3%).