A cross sectional study of maternal ‘near-miss’ cases in major public hospitals in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria

Table 1 Maternal health indicators in the study hospitals in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria as compared to findings from the WHO MCS Study

Country	Data collection period (2012–2013)	Live births (LB)	Maternal deaths	Near-miss cases	SMOR per 1000 LB^c	MNMR per 1000 LB^d	MNM mortality ratio^e	MI (%)^f
Egypt	12 weeks	2641	3	32	13.3	12.1	11:1	8.6
Lebanon	41 weeks^a	1171	0	5	4.3	4.3	5:0	0.0
Palestine	14.5 weeks	1244	0	16	12.9	12.9	16:0	0.0
Syria	12 weeks	4007	3	18	5.2	4.5	6:1	14.3
All		9063	6	71	8.5	7.8	11.8:1	7.8
Overall WHO MCS results (N = 29) ^b		306,771	486	2538	9.9	8.3	5.2:1	16.1
WHO MCS–Countries with moderate MMR(N = 15) ^b		134,545	49	824	6.5	6.1	16.8:1	5.6

^aDue to the low average annual number of deliveries in RHUH, the team decided to continue data collection for a longer period of time than the other study sites
^bSource [21]:
^cSMOR - Severe Maternal Outcome Ratio: the number of women with life-threatening conditions (MNM + MD) per 1000 live births (LB). This indicator gives an estimate of the amount of care and resources that would be needed in an area or facility (SMOR = MNM + MD/LB) [1]
^dMNMR-MNM Ratio: the number of maternal near-miss cases per 1000 live births (MNMR = MNM/LB). Similarly to the SMOR, this indicator gives an estimation of the amount of care and resources that would be needed in an area or facility [1]
^eMaternal near-miss mortality ratio (MNM: 1 MD):the ratio between maternal near-miss cases and maternal deaths. Higher ratios indicate better care [1]
^f[Maternal] Mortality Index (MI): the number of maternal deaths divided by the number of women with life-threatening conditions expressed as a percentage (MI = MD/MNM + MD). The higher the index the more women with life-threatening conditions die (low quality of care), whereas the lower the index the fewer the women with life-threatening conditions die (better quality of care) [1]

ISSN: 1471-2393