KARACHI, April 13: Pregnancy-related complications ranging from sever anaemia and hypertension to tetanus and varied infections lead to 800 annual deaths among every 100,000 women in the country.

This was stated by Dr Syed Shakeel Abbas Rizvi, a UK-based medical expert, while delivering a lecture on "Management of Pregnancy-induced Hypertension and Eclampsia", at the Dow University of Health Sciences on Tuesday.

He cited hypertension as one of the most common complication causing mortality during pregnancy in many countries, including Pakistan. Dr Rizvi, who works with Salisbury General Hospital, said that deficiency of blood during pregnancy, hypertension, heart diseases and eclampsia or infection were the most common reasons of women's deaths.

Accurate diagnosis, control over blood pressure and accurate decision of time of birth were very important factors because during delivery, lives of both mother and child were in danger, he added.

He regretted that local women used to approach doctors when their conditions turned severe. He stressed that all women must ensure regular checkups during pregnancy as well as before and after pregnancy so that proper treatment could be made in time.

He said that early diagnosis and use of proper medicines could not only prevent eclampsia and hypertension, but also reduce the complications. Mentioning that due care of any pregnant woman is the responsibility of all family members, he said that environment at home must be calm and satisfactory and there should be proper care of food for them.

Giving some statistics, he said that 31 among every 1,000 children died soon after birth while 89 infants among every 1,000 died of diseases. He stressed on the need of quality education and training in the field of reproductive health.

The presentation was followed by a question and answer session actively participated by the students and faculty members of the Dow University of Health Sciences. -APP/PPI