Abstract:

The issue of maternal mortality in the developing world is still a major concern for health planners and policymakers. This systematic review was done keeping in view the high maternal mortality rates in Nigeria, to identify the major direct and indirect causes and thus enable us to understand the gaps between what is and what ought to be. For this purpose, the published work was reviewed by searching the PubMed and BioMed Central databases for retrospective maternal mortality reviews and autopsies after the year 2000. Of 69 articles, 11 full-text articles were reviewed and six of them were finally included in the study. Eclampsia, pre-eclampsia, and hemorrhage were reported to be the most common direct causes of maternal mortality, all of which are preventable by simple maneuvers like regular antenatal checkups, early detection, presence of trained birth attendants to assist with the delivery, easy access to health facilities, etc. There is a need to increase the utilization of antenatal care services to improve the number of booked patients and ensure the provision of essential medicines and safe blood transfusions to reduce the current high mortality rates.

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