[Maternal mortality from hemorrhage in the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil]

Bottom-up development of national obstetric guidelines in middle-income country Suriname

Background

Obstetric guidelines are useful to improve the quality of care. Availability of international guidelines has rapidly increased, however the contextualization to enhance feasibility of implementation in health facilities in low and middle-income settings has only been described in literature in a few instances. This study describes the approach and lessons learned from the ‘bottom-up’ development process of context-tailored national obstetric guidelines in middle-income country Suriname.

Methods

Local obstetric health care providers initiated the guideline development process in Suriname in August 2016 for two common obstetric conditions: hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) and post partum haemorrhage (PPH).

Results

The process consisted of six steps: (1) determination of how and why women died, (2) interviews and observations of local clinical practice, (3) review of international guidelines, (4) development of a primary set of guidelines, (5) initiation of a national discussion on the guidelines content and (6) establishment of the final guidelines based on consensus. Maternal enquiry of HDP- and PPH-related maternal deaths revealed substandard care in 90 and 95% of cases, respectively. An assessment of the management through interviews and labour observations identified gaps in quality of the provided care and large discrepancies in the management of HDP and PPH between the hospitals. International recommendations were considered unfeasible and were inconsistent when compared to each other. Local health care providers and stakeholders convened to create national context-tailored guidelines based on adapted international recommendations. The guidelines were developed within four months and locally implemented.

Conclusion

Development of national context-tailored guidelines is achievable in a middle-income country when using a ‘bottom-up’ approach that involves all obstetric health care providers and stakeholders in the earliest phase. We hope the descriptive process of guideline development is helpful for other countries in need of nationwide guidelines.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-019-4377-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Epidemiological profile of maternal mortality

ABSTRACT Objective: To know the epidemiological profile of maternal mortality in Juiz de Fora, a city in the state of Minas Gerais. Data collection was carried out from April to December 2016. Method: Summary of a confidential investigation of maternal mortality on deaths occurred from January 1st, 2005 to December 31, 2015. Results: Eighty-five deaths of women residing in Juiz de Fora were identified and analyzed. The age group was between 20 and 36 years. The women carried out prenatal care (74.1%) with less than six visits (34.0%). Cesarean section was conducted in 38.8% of the childbirths and the obstetric treatment was considered appropriate (32.9%). The first cause of maternal death was hypovolemic shock 12 (14.10%), followed by uterine hypotony 6 (7.0%). Conclusion: Cesarean section rates are high and prenatal adherence is lower than that expected, which could justify the number of deaths in the period studied.