Overview - third report on confidential enquiries into maternal deaths in South Africa 2002-2004 : overview

Extracted from text ... Obstetrics & Gynaecology Forum August 2006 79 OVERVIEW OG16:79-82 Correspondence: Prof RC Pattinson email: rcpattin@kalafong.up.ac.za Introduction Confidential enquiries into maternal deaths (CEMD) can be defined as "a systematic multidisciplinary anonymous investigation of all or a representative sample of maternal deaths occurring at an area, region (state) or national level which identifies the numbers, causes and avoidable or remediable factors associated with them. Through the lessons learnt from each woman's death, and through aggregating the data, confidential enquiries provide evidence of where the main problems in overcoming maternal mortality lie and an analysis of what can be ..