Iatrogenic risks and maternal health: Issues and outcomes.

Objective: To observe acute maternal morbidity and mortality due to iatrogenic factors and outcomes.

Methods: This observational cross sectional study was conducted at intensive care unit of Liaquat University of Medical and Health sciences Jamshoro from 1-January-2011 to 31-December-2012. In this study all the delivered or undelivered women who needed intensive care unit (ICU) admission due to management related life threatening complication referred from periphery or within this hospital were included, while those women who had pregnancy complicated by medical conditions were excluded. These women were registered on the predesigned proforma containing variables like Demographic characteristics, various iatrogenic risk factors, complications and management out comes. The data was collected and analyzed on SPSS version 20.

Results: During these study period 51 women needed ICU care for different complications due to adverse effects of medical treatments. Majority of these women were between 20-40 years of age 41(80.39%), multiparous 29(56.86%), unbooked 38(74.50%), referred from periphery 39(76.47%), common iatrogenic factors were misuse of oxytocin 16(31.37%), fluid overload/cardiac failure 8(15.68%), blood reaction 7(13.72%), anesthesia related problems were delayed recovery 3(5.88%), cardiac arrest 2(3.92%), spinal shock 2(3.92%), surgical problems were bladder injury 5(9.8%), post operative internal haemorrhage 3(5.88%), 37(72.54%) women recovered and 14(27.45%) expired.

Conclusion: The maternal morbidity and mortality rate with iatrogenic factors was high and majority of these factors were avoidable.