C Ronsmans

..Sustainability requires a commitment to audit from policy makers and managers at higher levels of the health system and some devolution of resources for implementing recommendations...

..A study with 15,000 women will have over 90% power to detect a 25% reduction from 4% to 3% in the primary endpoint of mortality or hysterectomy...

..Since the early 1990s, Bangladesh has followed a strategy of improving access to facilities equipped and staffed to provide emergency obstetric care (EmOC)...

..The purpose of this study was to document the frequency and causes of near miss and maternal deaths in four hospitals in West Java, Indonesia...

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..Multiple micronutrient deficiencies are common among women in low-income countries and may adversely affect pregnancy outcomes...

..To examine determinants of maternal mortality and assess the effect of programmes aimed at increasing the number of births attended by health professionals in two districts in West Java, Indonesia...

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..By defining complications at the very extreme end of the severity spectrum, we postulate that its count in hospitals can be used to represent the incidence in the general population...

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..Inequalities in the risk of maternal death exist everywhere. Targeting of interventions to the most vulnerable--rural populations and poor people--is essential if substantial progress is to be achieved by 2015...

..We examined population-based caesarean rates by socioeconomic groups in various developing countries...

..In this paper we review indicators of service use and need for obstetric care, and briefly discuss data collection issues...

..We therefore investigated the effect of the death of the mother or father on the survival of the child up to age 10 years in rural Bangladesh...

..In this study we examine the association between population indicators of access to obstetric care and levels of maternal mortality in urban and rural West Africa...

..To examine the nature of the relationship between the use of skilled attendance around the time of delivery and maternal and perinatal mortality...

..We chose HDP because they represent a major cause of death in low income countries and evidence of effect on maternal mortality from randomised studies is available for some interventions...

..The high cost of emergency obstetric interventions may well be the most important obstacle to the use of hospital care...

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..The study highlights the regressive nature of the financing of CEOC services and the need for a financing strategy that covers both the costs of referral and BEOC care for those in need...

..To examine socioeconomic gradients in mortality in adult women and their husbands in Bangladesh, paying particular attention to the independent effects of the educational status of each spouse...

..Facility-based delivery care is likely to be a cheaper and more feasible method for the care provider as demand rises. In settings where skilled attendance rates are very low, home-based care will be cheaper...

..These data provide support for negative long-term costs of bearing sons in mothers in rural Bangladesh, and suggest that there are context-specific factors that mask the true effects of sons in some populations...

..3 years of this programme coincided with a significant reduction in direct obstetric mortality compared with the 3 years before the programme. We have examined whether the effects of the programme are sustained over time...

..To examine the nature of the association between maternal mortality and birth with a health professional in observational studies...

..Finally, after examining the political and financial context, we call for action. The need for strategic vision, financial resources, human resources, and information are discussed...

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..The active negotiation of social conflict and blame enabled a minority of patients actively to divert blame from themselves and to develop and maintain critical healthcare evaluations...

..A "healthy pregnant woman effect" coupled with the social and economic advantages of having surviving children may explain the observed effects...

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..The aim of this study is to examine mortality after pregnancy in rural Bangladesh using data from a unique demographic surveillance system...

..We sought to quantify this risk and explore the duration of increased risk for these women...

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..We discuss methodological, social, and biological factors that may have affected these associations...

..Should a woman develop severe obstetric complications while in labour, the relatively high costs of hospital care could have a potentially catastrophic impact on the household budget...

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..This paper describes poor-rich inequalities in the use of maternity care and seeks to understand these inequalities through comparisons with other types of health care...

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..It may also be necessary to recognize that village midwives are not solely responsible for maternal deaths...

..To examine the reliability of reported rates of caesarean sections from developing countries and make recommendations on how data collection for surveys and health facility-based studies could be improved...

..Strengthening of the knowledge base on the effectiveness of public health strategies to reduce maternal mortality is urgently required but will need concerted action and international commitment...

..Before developing countries reinforce home-based births with a skilled attendant, research is needed to compare the feasibility, cost, effectiveness, acceptability, and implications for health-care equity in both approaches...

..To assess whether the strategy of "a midwife in every village" in Indonesia achieved its aim of increasing professional delivery care for the poorest women...

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..There was a lack of universal hygiene precautions and women received little support during labour. Our results question the quality of labour, delivery and postpartum care by skilled attendants in Côte d'Ivoire...

..The study illuminates practical, cultural and medical issues that need to be taken into consideration when choosing between home- and facility-based strategies and designing safe motherhood interventions...

..We examined and compared trends in maternal mortality in two adjacent areas over 30 years, by separate analyses of causes of death, underlying sociodemographic determinants, and areas and time periods in which interventions differed...

..Moreover, randomising patients with a preference may affect treatment efficacy and threaten internal validity...

..To compare family reports of pregnancy status in deceased women with a biological assessment of pregnancy using a post-mortem beta-HCG test...

..The extent to which these could be attributed to the direct impact of the epidemic on both infected and uninfected women, as opposed to pre-existing differences in their fertility, merits further study...

..The objectives of this study were to investigate the mortality of women of reproductive age by both HIV and pregnancy status, and quantify the excess mortality attributable to HIV during pregnancy in Pointe Noire, Congo...

..To assess whether implementation of a prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programme in Côte d'Ivoire improved the quality of antenatal and delivery care services...