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Violent deaths: the hidden face of maternal mortality
Ana Carla Granja1, Eugenio Zacarias, Staffan Bergström
1Ministry of Health, Maputo, Mozambique.
Objective:
To review pregnancy-related deaths due to injuries, to identify the characteristics of these women and to compare the magnitude of injury-related maternal deaths to that of other causes of maternal death.
Design:
A retrospective study was performed during a five-year period (1991-1995), covering deaths from injuries, including suicide, homicide and accidents in Maputo, Mozambique.
Setting:
Department of Forensic Medicine at the Maputo Central Hospital, Mozambique.
Population:
The pregnant or recently pregnant (post-abortion and postpartum) population of Maputo city, the national capital of Mozambique. Twenty-seven cases of pregnancy-related deaths caused by injuries were identified.
Main Outcome Measures:
Proportion of deaths due to homicide, suicide, and accidents in pregnant women or within 42 days after termination of pregnancy.
Results:
Ten cases were due to alleged homicide, nine to alleged suicide and six to alleged accident. Fifty-nine percent (16/27) of women suffering an injury-related maternal death were younger than 25 years of age. Eighty-five percent of pregnancies were less than 28 weeks of gestational age. The magnitude of the problem of violence-related maternal deaths compares with the magnitude of pregnancy-induced hypertension as the fourth cause of maternal death at Maputo Central Hospital.
Conclusion:
The contribution of violence-related deaths tomaternal mortality is significant and must not be neglected.
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