ASCRIBING CAUSES OF MATERNAL MORTALITY IN HOMA BAY COUNTY KENYA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47604/jhmn.1347Keywords:
Maternal Mortality, Hypertension, Infection and HemorrhageAbstract
Purpose: The study sought to ascribe cause of maternal mortality in Homa Bay County Kenya.
Materials and Method: Data was collected by 40 trained community health workers who were residents of each sub county. Data for the retrospective study was collected using a standardized WHO verbal autopsy questionnaire. All maternal deaths which occurred between 2015 and 2019 in the county were identified. Data was analyzed using SPSS software version 20. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multiple logistic regression were used in data analysis. Odds ratios with 95% confidence interval were calculated. P value of less than 0.05 was used to establish statistical significance.
Results: The results show that 73.6% of the deaths occurred in a health facility with 20.7% occurring at home. Majority (70.7%) of the mothers visited health facilities during the last illness preceding death. 13.6% received treatment at home while 9.3% were seen by traditional healers. Expert review of the 140 reported deaths reported the leading causes of maternal deaths as obstetric haemorrhage (31.4%), HIV/AIDS (10.7% and abortion (10%). Although the results were not statistically significant, a higher proportion of community deaths attributed to obstetric hemorrhage (31.8%) and abortion-related causes (35.7%). A higher proportion of housewives in Homa Bay died at home, though all the socio-demographic and health-related variables analyzed were not significantly correlated with community deaths.
Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The need for improving the quality of care offered in different health care facilities, the department should also create an enabling environment and ensure a fully functional referral pathway between health facilities in the county. There is therefore need of increasing age of marriage through the practice of family planning methods and avoidance of home treatment and traditional healers. Further research can be done on causes of maternal deaths with a larger sample size.
Downloads
References
Alabi, O., & Doctor, H. V. (2015). The potential role of a health and demographic surveillance system in rural northern Nigeria to reduce maternal and child deaths. Health, 7(12), 1741.
Francis Obare, Wilson Liambila, Dan Okoro, Robert Ayisi, Sam Ochola (2020). Factors contributing to maternal mortality in relatively resource-endowed urban contexts of developing countries: The case of Nairobi, Kenya. African Population Studies 30(3): 3073-3084.
Gajalakshmi V, &Peto R. (2004). Verbal autopsy of 80,000 adult deaths in Tamilnadu, South India. BMC Public Health; 4: 47.
Halim, A, Utz B, Biswas A, Rahman F, &van den Broek, N. (2014) Cause of and contributing factors to maternal deaths; a cross-sectional study using verbal autopsy in four districts in Bangladesh. BJOG; 121 (Suppl. 4): 86-94.
Health, Population & Nutrition Office, & International Business & Technical Consultants, In. (2018). Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child, and Adolescent Health (RMNCAH) Baseline Assessment Report. Nairobi: USAID.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (2009). Economic Survey. Nairobi: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Health, National AIDS Control Council, Kenya Medical Research Institute, National Council for Population and Development, & The DHS Program, ICF Internationa (December 2015). Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2014. Nairobi: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. (2020). Economic Survey. Nairobi: Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.
Khan, N., & Pradhan, M. R. (2013). Identifying factors associated with maternal deaths in Jharkhand, India: a verbal autopsy study. Journal of health, population, and nutrition, 31(2), 262.
Lassi, Z. S., Kedzior, S. G., Das, J. K., & Bhutta, Z. A. (2019). Protocol: Effects of preconception care and periconception interventions on maternal nutritional status and birth outcomes in low"and middle"income countries: A systematic review. Immunology, 15(1-2).
Meghn Desai, Penelope A. Phillips-Howard, & Kayla F. Laserson (2013) An Analysis of Pregnancy-Related Mortality in the KEMRI/CDC Health and Demographic Surveillance System in Western Kenya
Rishworth, A., Dixon, J., Luginaah, I., Mkandawire, P., & Prince, C. T. (2016). "I was on the way to the hospital but delivered in the bush": Maternal health in Ghana's Upper West Region in the context of a traditional birth attendants' ban. Social Science & Medicine, 148, 8-17.
Shah P, Shah S, Kutty RV, Modi D. (2014). Changing epidemiology of maternal mortality in rural India: time to reset strategies for MDG-5. Trop Med Int Health; 19:568-75
United Nations, (2012, MAY 6). New UN Report: Maternal deaths nearly halved in 20 years. New York, USA
World Health Organization. (2007). Verbal autopsy standards: ascertaining and attributing cause of death. World Health Organization.
World Health Organization; (2016), International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems Volume 10. Geneva: Accessed on the 3rd. of September 2017.
World Health Organization (2015). Trends in maternal mortality: 1990 to 2015: estimates by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group and the United Nations Population Division. Geneva accessed on October 8, 2016TheWorld Health Report 2015: Make Every Mother and Child Count. Geneva, Switzerland
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Tamima Ajul Athmani, Dr. Mary. Kipmerewo, Mr. John Arudo
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
