Background Maternal infections are an important cause of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity. We report the main findings of the WHO Global Maternal Sepsis Study, which aimed to assess the frequency of maternal infections in health facilities, according to maternal characteristics and outcomes, and coverage of core practices for early identification and management.Methods We did a facility-based, prospective, 1-week inception cohort study in 713 health facilities providing obstetric, midwifery, or abortion care, or where women could be admitted because of complications of pregnancy, childbirth, post-partum, or post-abortion, in 52 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) and high-income countries (HICs). We obtained data from hospital records for all pregnant or recently pregnant women hospitalised with suspected or confirmed infection. We calculated ratios of infection and infection-related severe maternal outcomes (ie, death or near-miss) per 1000 livebirths and the proportion of intrahospital fatalities across country income groups, as well as the distribution of demographic, obstetric, clinical characteristics and outcomes, and coverage of a set of core practices for identification and management across infection severity groups.

The study aimed to determine the maternal characteristics and contribution to obstetric morbidity of infants presenting with fetal macrosomia at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. This was a retrospective study. Obstetric data of the mothers were extracted from the casenotes and analysed. Fetal characteristics such as sex and weight, and perinatal complication were also analysed. The maternal characteristics that were significantly different in the study and control groups were parity, term weight >/= 90 kg, previous history of fetal macrosomia and mean duration of pregnancy. There was no significant difference in maternal age or height. The incidence of caesarean section was three times more common in the study group. There were three cases of shoulder dystocia in the study group but none in the control group. The mean birth weight of macrosomic babies delivered by section or macrosomic babies that died was higher than the mean birth weight of macrosomic babies delivered per vagina or that survived. Severe asphyxia at 1 minute was significantly higher in the study group. Perinatal mortality among macrosomic babies was 11.4/1,000. There was no mortality in the control group. It is suggested that clinical suspicion of macrosomic based on risk factors such as those identified in this study may be found useful in antenatal prediction.

GDM is a common metabolic condition in Nigeria. Onset before the 24th week of pregnancy is not uncommon.

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The prevalence of squamous intraepithelial lesion is higher among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive women. These lesions when they occur in these patients are also more difficult to treat. A total of 205 consenting HIV-seropositive women were recruited. A cervical cytology (Pap smear) was taken, followed by visual inspection with freshly prepared 5% acetic acid and cervical biopsy taken from the squamocolumnar junction as the reference for diagnosis to avoid verification bias. The sensitivity of VIA was 76.0% (95% CI 52.0-91.0); specificity 83.0% (95% CI 77.0-88.0); positive predictive value 34.0% (95% CI 21.0-49.0). The sensitivity of cervical cytology (Pap smear) was 57.0% (95% CI 34.0-77.0), specificity of 95.0% (95% CI 90.0-97.0), and positive predictive value of 55.0% (95% CI 33.0-75.0). In HIV-seropositive women, the sensitivity of VIA is 76.0%, making it a useful screening test for preinvasive lesion of the cervix in low resource settings.