Holistic health care and maternal death in a hospital in south Nigeria: A case report

Ac­cording to the World Health Organization (WHO), the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of Nigeria is 814 (per 100,000 live births. The Sustainable Development Goal aims to achieve a maternal mortality ratio of less than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. This may be feasible only if the perception, values, religious beliefs and practices of the pregnant women observed as factors implicated in the poor utilization of health facilities in Nigeria as in other developing countries are properly addressed. While effort is being made to provide standard well-equipped Health facilities, integration of holistic care into reproductive health programs by taking a detailed spirituality history of the pregnant women early enough in the antenatal clinic to elicit and effectively address these monsters, need also be explored. We present a 27yrs old primigravida who duly attended antenatal care in the zonal hospital Bori, was booked for an elective caesarian section at 38 weeks of gestation for cephalo-pelvic disproportion (CPD),but she went to a church where during prayers and deliverance it was prophesied that she would deliver like the ‘Hebrew women’. She remained in labor at a mission home for 3 days. She had an intrauterine fetal death and subsequently died on arrival at the hospital.