ArticlePloS one2026
Maternal deaths on arrival: A 5-year retrospective study in a health district in South Africa.
Article in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Maternal deaths on arrival remain one of the blind spots in maternal death surveillance and response programs. There are no policy and guideline addressing maternal deaths on arrival in South Africa. Main objective was to analyse maternal deaths on arrival at the health facilities in a South African district. All maternal deaths on arrival at the health facilities at the Ekurhuleni district over a period of five years and nine months (July 2014 to March 2020), were retrospectively reviewed. Analysis included maternal mortality ratio, demography, gestational age at booking, delivery and deaths, newborn outcome, causes and interval between hospital discharge and presenting as dead. Descriptive statistics (proportion, mean, standard deviation, median and interquartile range) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test, Fishers exact test and Students t test) comparing the women with known and unknown causes, are presented. Twenty-eight (5.72%) women out of the 489 maternal deaths were dead on arrival. The maternal mortality ratio was 7.65 maternal deaths per 100000 live births. Causes of deaths were inconclusive in 17 (60.71%). Among the known causes, the commonest (5, 45.45%) cause was haemorrhage. Median interval between discharge from hospital and presenting as dead was 2.5 days. Information on three delay model were unavailable. Delay two was mentioned for only one year where ambulance service was disrupted due to local protests against municipal services. Comparison between the known and unknown causes showed the regional hospitals had significantly higher numbers of known causes.
conclusionMaternal deaths on arrival was an important contributor to maternal mortality in this study although poorly documented. Majority attended antenatal care and delivered at the hospitals raising a suspicion of early hospital discharge and failure to timely follow-up. A protocol and guideline, with a focus on postmortem examinations should be developed for management of maternal deaths on arrival.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.