ISSN: 2574-0407
Bewket Tadesse Tiruneh
Background: Primary postpartum haemorrhage remains the primary cause of maternal mortality in low-resource countries such as Ethiopia. National datasets about the incidence of primary postpartum haemorrhage are often limited, incomplete or unavailable.
Aim: To determine the incidence mortality, and factors associated with primary postpartum haemorrhage following in-hospital births.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional study design, an audit of 1060 maternity care logbooks of discharged women. The data were abstracted December to May 2018/2019 using systematic random sampling. The tool used was the Facility Based Maternal Death Abstraction Form. Data were entered, cleaned then analysed using SPSS version 25. Bivariate logistic regression was fitted. Adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to determine the statistical significance.
Findings: The incidence of primary postpartum haemorrhage was nearly 9.0% (95% CI: 6.91, 10.73). Of these, there was 7% maternal mortality. Predominant to women in Ethiopia health facility referrals of women in labour (AOR: 2.13; 95% CI: 1.19, 3.80), birth attended by final year medical students (AOR: 3.59; 95% CI: 1.89, 6.84), women who were discharged six hours following birth (AOR: 3.50; 95% CI: 1.24, 9.91) were associated with primary postpartum haemorrhage (p<0.05).
Discussion: This study found that the reported incidence of primary postpartum haemorrhage was relatively low, however, the associated deaths of women found was comparatively high.