A 5-year review of maternal mortality associated with eclampsia in a tertiary institution in northern Nigeria

Objective : To determine the incidence of maternal mortality associated with eclampsia and to determine how socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of the women influence the deaths. Methodology : Records of 52 eclampsia-related mortalities from January 2003 to December 2007 were reviewed, retrospectively. Their social demography, mode and place of delivery, time of eclampsia, and fetal outcome were extracted for analysis. Results : Eclampsia accounted for 52 (46.4%) of the 112 total maternal deaths recorded within the 5-year period, with case fatality of 22.33%. Age group <20, 20-29 and above 30 all had similar case fatality rate of 22.1%, 23.8% and 26.7%, respectively. Those who were experiencing their first deliveries have the worst deaths recording 42.5% of the case fatality in that category. As expected, unbooked had higher case fatality of 24.0% compared to 15% among booked cases, while those with no formal education also had more death (22.3% case fatality) as compared to 3.3% among those who had some form of formal education. Antepartum eclampsia was the cause in 50% of the death, 11(21.2%) of the pregnancies were not delivered before their death, while 18 (34.6%) were stillbirth. Conclusion : Eclampsia still remains the major cause of maternal mortality in this region resulting from unsupervised pregnancies and deliveries. There is need to educate and encourage the general public for antenatal care and hospital delivery.