Demographic Determinants of Maternal “Near-Miss” Cases in Rural Uttarakhand

Introduction: Maternal morbidity and mortality in India continues to remain high despite concerted efforts during the past decades. Aim &Objective:To determine the prevalence of demographic determinants of maternal ‘near miss’ cases in rural Uttarakhand. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study, over a period of 12 months was conducted as per the WHO criteria for ‘near-miss’ by using Probability sampling for random selectionof health facilities. All the women attending health-care facilities, who were pregnant, in labour, or who had delivered or aborted up to 42 days ago arriving at the selected health facility were included. Result: A significant association between maternal outcome and age of study population was found. Out of total 937 pregnant women, there was a significant association between state of residence and development of PLTC. Majority 27 (52.94%) cases of the ‘near miss’ cases had gestational age ranging between 24-36 weeks. In the cases of maternal death 50% of the death occurred in women with more than 36 weeks of gestation. Conclusion: The WHO ‘near miss’ approach has been found to be an effective measure to assess quality of care in maternal health across countries including India.