Audit
The guidelines recommend management of common obstetric conditions at primary and referral level, based on local experience and evidence-based practice. They are not intended as strict protocols nor as standard operating procedures, but rather as a guide to safe effective management of common obstetric problems. The guidelines should be most useful to interns, medical officers and registrars.
Audit in maternity care is more than just the gathering of data and statistics: it is the use of this information to identify problems and devise solutions to those problems. Audit involves collecting of essential data and holding audit meetings of all the staff involved in maternity care.
The following information is routinely collected:
- Number of deliveries
- Number of low birth weight babies (<2.5 kg)
- Number of stillbirths
- Number of early neonatal deaths (died in the first 7 days)
- Number of caesarean sections and assisted deliveries
- Number of multiple pregnancies
- Number of women <18 and ³35 years of age
- Maternal deaths
The above data are summarised and presented at regular morbidity and mortality (M&M) review meetings, preferably held weekly at referral hospitals. All maternal deaths and selected cases of perinatal morbidity or mortality are also discussed. All doctors working in the maternity service should attend these meetings.