Maternal near miss: an indicator for maternal health and maternal care.

Maternal mortality is one of the important indicators used for the measurement of maternal health. Although maternal mortality ratio remains high, maternal deaths in absolute numbers are rare in a community. To overcome this challenge, maternal near miss has been suggested as a compliment to maternal death. It is defined as pregnant or recently delivered woman who survived a complication during pregnancy, childbirth or 42 days after termination of pregnancy. So far various nomenclature and criteria have been used to identify maternal near-miss cases and there is lack of uniform criteria for identification of near miss. The World Health Organization recently published criteria based on markers of management and organ dysfunction, which would enable systematic data collection on near miss and development of summary estimates. The prevalence of near miss is higher in developing countries and causes are similar to those of maternal mortality namely hemorrhage, hypertensive disorders, sepsis and obstructed labor. Reviewing near miss cases provide significant information about the three delays in health seeking so that appropriate action is taken. It is useful in identifying health system failures and assessment of quality of maternal health-care. Certain maternal near miss indicators have been suggested to evaluate the quality of care. The near miss approach will be an important tool in evaluation and assessment of the newer strategies for improving maternal health.