• Ricardo González-Rosales, Isabel Ayala-Leal, Jorge Alejandro Cerda-López, and Miguel Angel Cerón-Saldaña.
• Hospital General de Matamoros Dr. Alfredo Pumarejo Lafaurie, Matamoros, Tamaulipas, México. docrgr@hotmail.com
• Ginecol Obstet Mex. 2010 Apr 1; 78 (4): 219-25.

BackgroundIn Mexico, maternal mortality has fallen substantially in recent decades. Although according to the Secretaria de Salud, in Tamaulipas the maternal mortality rate has increased in recent years. Despite these facts, Tamaulipas ranks among the ten institutions with the lowest level of maternal mortality.ObjectiveTo describe the basic elements of epidemiologic behavior of maternal mortality during a period of ten years at the Gynecology and Obstetrics department of the Hospital General de Matamoros Dr. Alfredo Pumarejo Lafaurie in Tamaulipas, Mexico.Material And MethodA descriptive, transverse, retrospective and a cases series research was carried out at the Gynecology and Obstetrics department of the Hospital General de Matamoros Dr. Alfredo Pumarejo Lafaurie in Tamaulipas, Mexico. There was a revision of the expedients of direct and indirect obstetric maternal deaths occurred from January 1, 1998 to December 31, 2007. We used descriptive statistics with central trend measurements and standard deviation.Results30 obstetric maternal deaths were registered. Maternal death ratio was 87.2 x 100,000 live births during the 10 years. The average age of patients was 25.1 +/- 7.8 years old. 54% were in their first pregnancy. Only 20% had adequate prenatal control. Direct obstetric causes were 60% and indirect obstetric causes 40%. The main causes of maternal deaths were preeclampsia/eclampsia (27%), obstetric hemorrhage (20%) and gravid-puerperal sepsis (13%). 83% was foreseeable.ConclusionsIt was noted a clear trend towards the reduction in the maternal mortality ratio in the decade from 1998 to 2007. Preeclampsia-eclampsia and obstetric hemorrhage remain the main causes of maternal death. The maternal mortality ratio tended to invest when comparing the first five years with the last five years of the study, which talks about improvements in management and direct obstetric causes prevention.

32 keywords...

hide…