Audit of Early and Late Maternal Deaths in Georgia: Potential for Improving Substandard Obstetric Care

Reassuringly expensive - A commentary on obstetric emergency training in high-resource settings

The pathophysiologic origins of obstetrical emergencies are complicated and may well be influenced by events prior to conception. Such problems are not likely to be resolved soon, and in the meantime, high-resource countries simply cannot afford to divert more and more money to litigation and the costs of preventable morbidities for either mother or child. It is long past time we tackled these acute care problems where most first occur-the Maternity unit. It is reasonable to ask whether hospitals (and society at large) are getting what they believe they are buying. Training to satisfy a regulation without improving patient outcomes functionally erects one more barrier to the pursuit of optimal patient outcomes. Why then continue squandering limited resources and precious lives if current hospital training is not improving outcomes? In this monograph, I focus on training programs for the management of obstetrical emergencies.

Maternal deaths among patients with cancer in the United States

Our objective was to characterize the risks of maternal deaths in cancer patients compared to the general population using a large population-based cohort.Female patients with a cancer first diagnosed at ages 15 to 39 years between 2000 and 2016 (N = 240,561) from the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results database were extracted, among which 165 maternal deaths were observed.We found Hispanic ethnic groups, advanced cancer stage, receiving chemotherapy were associated with a higher risk of maternal deaths compared to the general the United States population. Patients with cancers of the respiratory system were at the highest risk of maternal deaths, followed by cancers of the digestive system, and hematological malignancies.