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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2006;295:2240.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Hemorrhage and hypertension are the chief causes of maternal deaths in developing countries, according to a report by scientists from the World Health Organization (WHO), Geneva, Switzerland; the University of Birmingham, in London, England; and the Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales, in Rosario, Argentina (Khan KS et al. Lancet. 2006;367:1066-1074).

In an analysis of 35 197 maternal deaths in which the reported cause of death was hemorrhage, a hypertensive disorder, sepsis, abortion, obstructed labor, ectopic pregnancy, or embolism, the researchers found that nearly 34% of maternal deaths in Africa and nearly 31% in Asia resulted from hemorrhage. Hypertensive disorders caused nearly 26% of such deaths in Latin America and the Caribbean. Abortion-related deaths were 12% in Latin America and the Caribbean and as high as 30% in some individual countries in this region. Deaths due to sepsis were also higher in developing countries than in developed nations.

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