AFJOG

African Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology | Volume 3 | Issue 2 | 2025 | 40 ORIGINAL RESEARCH African Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology | Volume 3 | Issue 2 | 2025 | Comparing two maternal near miss criteria in an academic hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa: A retrospective cross-sectional study abruption placentae, in both groups, additional research is needed to look at causes in our setting, and ways that this can be prevented. Management of these women needs to be assessed, to identify any factors that can be addressed either pre-conception or during the pregnancy. This study should be conducted in multiple areas in the country, to ascertain if the outcomes would be the same and if a national near miss criteria could be adopted. Also, assessing indications for CS in SA, as well as outcomes with the WHO safety checklist is vital, to review outcomes. [34,35] Another important area for future research would be causes related to abruption placentas, and if anything can be done to prevent it. Strengths and limitations: The strengths in the study were that it was done in a setting that keeps record of near misses. Data gets collected daily. We are also able to compare the rates of near misses between the two groups because of this. The study was conducted in a tertiary hospital, which has referrals from the cluster. This includes complicated women from district and regional hospitals, as well as midwife run obstetric units. The study has the usual limitations of retrospective studies. Some record details were not legible, and therefore patients’ files could not be identified. Other records were missing or in transit between being uploaded on the electronic system and were not able to be used. Not all the records were complete, but the information available was still used, where possible. CONCLUSION: The new criteria seem to be more effective in our setting, as more maternal near misses were identified, but also less deaths occurred. We hypothesize that this is because the new criteria identified more near misses resulting in timeous intervention, preventing more maternal deaths. We do, however, note that there were less maternal deaths in the period when the new criteria was used, but this could be because more places in the country started using a WHO- based criteria. Effective strategies are needed to manage the main leading causes of MNM (Obstetrics haemorrhage, caesarean sections, HPT, existing medical condition). Bleeding associated with CS can be better managed by upskilling doctors on performing safe caesarean sections. We recommended replacing the old with the new near miss criteria as the new criteria seems to identify more near misses without concomitant increase in maternal deaths. We hope that with the changes in the policy regarding access to maternity healthcare services by the migrant population, more pregnant migrant women will be able to access healthcare and other lifesaving interventions timeously. This, we hope, will reduce their risk of suffering from a near miss and dying. REFERENCES ® ¬ ¦ ¦ ¬ ¢ ¡ ¤ ® ¦ ¦ ¬ ¢ ¤ ¦ ¬ ¦ ¢ ¦ ¤ ¡ ¦ ¬ ¢¤ ¢ ¬ ¢ ¢ ¥ ¬ ¡ ¢ ¡ µ ¶ ¦ ¦ ¦« ¦ ¢ ¢ ¢ ¦ ¤ ¢ ¦ ¦ ¢ ¦ ¤ ¢ ¦ À ¦ ¤ ¤ ¢ ¡ ¦ ¦ ¢ ¢ ¦ À ¦ ¤ ¤ ± Á ³½ ¤ ¥ ¢ ¡ ¡