Maternal Mortality Analysis

In the 2008 Sudan 5th Population Census two questions were used to derive estimates of maternal deaths based on a 10 per cent sample of all enumerated households in the Short Questionnaire. The second question was not attempted in previous censuses although it was introduced for the first time in the Sudan Household Health Survey 2006, (SHHS, 2006). The question was a direct question addressed to the household head asking for married females in reproductive ages that died during pregnancy or delivery or after six weeks of delivery during the last twelve months preceding the census reference period (22 April 2008). The Maternal Mortality Ratios (MMR) as were drawn from the SHHS results were extremely high exceeding 1000 deaths per 100000 live birth for the country as a whole with large differentials between North and South Sudan as well as between states compared with the latest estimate through the sisterhood method in the Safe Motherhood Survey 1999 (SMS, 1999) which was 509 deaths per 100000 live births.