Going 'Beyond the Numbers': Maternal Death Reviews in India

This essay discusses the Indian government's implementation of maternal death reviews (MDR) across the country in response to a global WHO strategy called 'Beyond the Numbers.' India's MDR process attempts to better count and assess maternal deaths across the country, yet considerable challenges remain. Existing studies of the MDR process in India still reveal systemic failures including poor quality of obstetric care, as well as omissions or delays of care that are covered up or denied. An ethnographic case study suggests ways that ethnographic sensibilities or techniques could be used to harness community stakeholders or lay perspectives by privileging ambiguity, multiplicity, and conflicting views in order to reveal these systemic omissions or failures of accountability. It concludes by suggesting how ethnographic ways of knowing might elicit lay concerns or critiques that threaten the very medical privileges that the MDR process inadvertently shores up.