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IIntroduction: Maternal Mortality Rate ind-ex is a reflection of public health status in society. Mothers are the main family axes, so maternal mortality and disability will affect all dimensions of family health, so this study was performed aimed to inv-estigate the frequency and effective factors on pregnant women´s mortality in Ilam Province, Iran, 2002-2010.
Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional, short-term study was performed using data from the clinical records and completed questionnaire for pregnant women´s deaths in Ilam province. The data was analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics and chi-square by SPSS software version 7.
Findings: results showed that the frequency of maternal mortality in the study was 22 cases, and Maternal Mortality Rate was 25.51 per 100,000 live births. The highest (22.73%), in the age group 30 to 35 years (36.36%), first pregnancy (31.9%), urban number of maternal deaths were in 2004 resident (59.09%), illiterate or poorly educated (50%), housewife (90.9%), receiving special care during pregnancy (81.8%), Cesarean delivery (54.54%) and wanted pregnancy (72.7%). Bleeding was the most common cause of maternal mor-tality (22.7%). The cause of maternal mo-rtality has statistically significant associ-ation with maternal education level (P=0. 031), maternal age (P=0.029), requiring to special care(P=0.003), the time of dea-th(P=0.019)and the type of delive-ry(P=0.019).
Discussion & Conclusion: According to rel-ative stability and lack of a clear trend in the maternal mortality ratio a basic action should be done by administrators and pol-icy makers in surveillance system of mate-rnal mortality and morbidity in designing and developing this program