Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Editorial

Can Antenatal Care Result in Significant Maternal Mortality Reduction in Developing Countries?

Koyejo Oyerinde^*

Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Koyejo Oyerinde
Assistant Professor
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University, New York, USA
Tel: 1-64 -897-341
E-mail: kao2127@columbia.edu

Received date: January 22, 2013; Accepted date: March 06, 2013; Published date: March 11, 2013

Citation: Oyerinde K (2013) Can Antenatal Care Result in Significant Maternal Mortality Reduction in Developing Countries? J Community Med Health Educ 3:e116. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.1000e116

Copyright: © 2013 Oyerinde K. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Antenatal screening can only be important as a maternal mortality reduction tool if the main causes of maternal mortality have detectable premorbid states for which there are efficacious and acceptable remedial interventions. Out of the seven major contributors to maternal mortality in developing countries, only malaria, HIV and pre-eclampsia/ eclampsia meet the above screening criteria. Antenatal care services will not identify most women who will develop postpartum hemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labor and complications of abortion. In countries with low prevalence for HIV and malaria the potential contribution of antenatal screening to maternal mortality reduction is severely limited. Antenatal care services contribute immensely to newborn survival; it is for this reason that they must be strengthened. Maternal mortality reduction strategies must include universal access to family planning, skilled attendance at birth and emergency obstetric care services.

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