Maternal Mortality Burden

Maternal mortality is one of the major health problems confronting Nigeria and other resource-poor countries. It is one of the most common causes of death for women of reproductive age in Nigeria. It results from several factors that act in an interrelated manner, ranging from biomedical causes to more distant non-biomedical causes. This book extensively discusses the prevalence of maternal mortality in Nigeria and the influence of socio-cultural, socio-economic, and political factors that contribute to the high mortality rate. Most authors center on the biomedical causes, however, to fully understand the reasons behind high mortality both biomedical and non-biomedical must be addressed. Maternal mortality reduction needs action beyond prevention and treatment of biomedical causes; it needs the modification of the socio-cultural contexts that contribute to high maternal mortality in Nigeria. They are difficult to change, but indispensable to maternal health. Hence, high maternal death must be addressed within the socio-cultural context of different Nigerian regions. The hope is to educate the general population on what contributes to high mortality and steps to take to reduce it.