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Abortion: Termination of pregnancy (expulsion or extraction of embryo/foetus) before 22 weeks of gestation or foetus weighs less than 500g. Abortion may be spontaneous (due to natural causes, such as miscarriage) or induced.
Anaemia: Reduction in red blood cells or amount of haemoglobin (concentration <110 g/l). Causes: Excessive blood loss, not eating enough iron and folic acid rich foods, due to malaria and other parasitic diseases.
Antenatal period: Period from conception till onset of labour. Approximately 40 weeks.
Auxiliary Nurse-Midwife (ANM): Community health worker at village sub-centre.
Caesarean section (CS): Delivery of the foetus through incisions in the abdominal and uterine wall.
Crude Birth Rate: Number of births per 1,000 population.
Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC): Responds to unexpected complications such as haemorrhage and obstructed labour with blood transfusion, anaesthesia and surgery. It does not include the management of problem pregnancies, monitoring of labour or neonatal special care.
Essential Obstetric Care (EOC) or Comprehensive Essential Obstetric Care (CEOC): Provides means to manage emergency obstetric complications and procedures for early detection and treatment to prevent the progression of problem pregnancies to an emergency level. Includes routine essential care in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period.
Exclusive breast feeding: Immediate breastfeeding of a newborn infant within one hour of birth. Feeding of a newborn and an infant till age 4-6 months exclusively with breast milk. No other fluid or food (not even water) is given.
Family planning: Effort to regulate the number and spacing of births through artificial and natural methods of contraception. Aside from conception control to avoid pregnancy and abortion, it also includes efforts of couples to induce pregnancy.
Fertility rate: Number of live births per 1,000 female population aged 15 to 49 years.
Haemorrhage: Significant and uncontrolled loss of blood, either internally or externally.
Lifetime Risk of Maternal Death: Probability of maternal death faced by a pregnant woman.
Maternal Morbidity: Illness or disability occurring as a result of or in relation to pregnancy and childbirth.
Neonatal death: Death of a live-born infant any time between birth and 28 days.
Obstetric Emergency: A severe, life-threatening condition that is related to pregnancy or delivery that requires urgent medical intervention (EOC) in order to prevent the likely death of the woman. An obstetric emergency:
• May occur any time during pregnancy, delivery or up to six weeks after childbirth
• May occur suddenly without any warning.
• Is life-threatening
• Requires urgent action.
• The patient must be taken to a hospital or first referral unit without delay.
Major signs of an Obstetric Emergency occurring during pregnancy, delivery or following delivery up to six weeks.
• Heavy bleeding
• High fever
• Convulsions
• Loss of consciousness
• Placenta does not come out within 30 minutes of delivery of the baby
Perinatal death: Death of a foetus occurring between the time it weighs at least 500g (or after 28 completed weeks of gestation) and the seventh day after birth of a live-born infant.
Postpartum period: After childbirth; the period from the delivery of the placenta through the first 42 days after delivery.
Postpartum haemorrhage: Loss of 500 ml or more of blood from the genital tract after delivery of the baby, usually occurs in the first 2 to 4 hours after delivery but can occur later.
Pre-eclampsia: A condition in pregnancy manifested by hypertension and/or proteinuria (excess protein in urine). Edema, is no longer part of the definition.
Prenatal period: The period between conception and birth (same as antenatal).
Reproductive age: 15-49 years for a woman.
Skilled Birth Attendant: Refers exclusively to people with midwifery skills (for example, doctors, midwives, nurses) who are proficient in the skills necessary to manage normal deliveries and diagnose, manage, or refer obstetric complications.
Stillbirth: A baby that is delivered dead. In medical terms, it is defined as the death of a foetus weighing at least 500 g (or after 28 completed weeks of gestation) before the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother.
Traditional Birth Attendant (also called TBA or dai): A traditional birth attendant is a person (usually a woman) who assists the mother during childbirth and who initially acquired her skills delivering babies herself or through apprenticeship with other traditional birth attendants. The TBA is generally an older woman, almost always post-menopause and has borne one or more children herself. She lives in the community in which she practices.
Trained Traditional Birth Attendant (TTBA): A TBA who has undergone a training course conducted by the modern healthcare sector.
The Five Cleans: Infections during childbirth are a major cause of maternal deaths. These can be prevented if the Five Cleans (childbirth and delivery practices) are adhered to:
• Clean delivery surface
• Clean hands (of birth attendant)
• Clean cord tie
• Clean blade
• Clean cord stump (without anything applied on it).
Unsafe abortion: Defined as a procedure for terminating an unwanted pregnancy either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment lacking the minimal medical standards, or both. Unsafe abortions are characterised by the lack or inadequacy of skills of the provider, hazardous techniques and unsanitary facilities.
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