Objective: To assess whether severe acute maternal morbidity (SAMM, 'near misses') can be used as a surrogate of an analysis of maternal deaths to describe the pattern of severe maternal disease and avoidable factors related to it.
Design: Prospective, descriptive study.
Setting: A SAMM and maternal mortality audit was conducted in three clearly defined geographical areas, consisting of rural and urban settings in South Africa.
Population: Indigent black African pregnant women.
Method: Cases of SAMM and maternal deaths were collected in the areas and a comparison was made of the disease profiles and avoidable factors, missed opportunities and substandard care.
Main outcome measures: The proportion of primary obstetric causes and avoidable factors in women with SAMM and maternal deaths, and the mortality indices of the primary obstetric causes of death and organ system dysfunction.
Results: A total of 423 women with SAMM and 128 maternal deaths were collected over two years. Demographic factors were similar between the groups except that significantly more maternal deaths had not attended any antenatal care. The primary obstetric causes of SAMM and maternal death did not correlate. The four most common causes of SAMM were complications of hypertension (27.2%), postpartum haemorrhage (18.0%), antepartum haemorrhage (12.8%) and abortion (11.3%), whereas the four most common causes of maternal death were non-pregnancy related sepsis (26.6%), complications of hypertension (23.4%), pre-existing medical disease (14.1%) and abortion (10.9%). The types of avoidable factors were similar between both groups although administrative factors occurred significantly more frequently in the maternal death group as did poor problem identification and monitoring.
Conclusion: Review of SAMM gives a different disease pattern to that obtained from maternal death audits. However, in diagnosing inadequacies in the health system, similar information was obtained.