Zero Preventable Maternal Death
Confidentially review each maternal death or severe morbidity, identify clinical and system causes and assign district corrective action.
Define the real situation without exposing the person.
Record India → State/UT → District → city/block → village/ward → institution or route only at a safe precision. Add the relevant life stage, setting, time, access need, disability, language, migration or work context, responsible service and current pathway. Survivor identity and sensitive medical or legal information must never be public.
This concept belongs to Maternal & Newborn Health Continuum, but its effects can cross school, health, transport, work, police, justice, digital systems, housing, finance and community life.
Describe the failed outcome—not a stereotype about women.
Confidentially review each maternal death or severe morbidity, identify clinical and system causes and assign district corrective action.
Care can be lost between community detection, antenatal services, referral transport, delivery facility and postnatal follow-up.
Contact counts can hide poor clinical quality, missed risk and delayed emergency escalation.
State who is affected, what happened or failed, when and where, the immediate risk, the service response, the coping cost and what remains unknown.
Test environmental, institutional, economic and social causes.
Late registration or incomplete follow-up
Compare service records, protected lived experience, place audits, legal duties, staffing, budgets and alternative explanations before verification.
Risk data does not travel safely with the woman
Compare service records, protected lived experience, place audits, legal duties, staffing, budgets and alternative explanations before verification.
Referral, transport, blood and facility readiness gaps
Compare service records, protected lived experience, place audits, legal duties, staffing, budgets and alternative explanations before verification.
Nutrition and mental health separated from obstetric care
Compare service records, protected lived experience, place audits, legal duties, staffing, budgets and alternative explanations before verification.
Low reporting may mean lower incidence, or it may mean fear, inaccessible help, weak registration or data gaps. No single indicator should decide the cause.
Combine three evidence layers and keep their limits visible.
| Layer | What it can show | What it cannot prove alone |
|---|---|---|
| Administrative | FIRs, calls, service use, investigation, court and programme records | Total prevalence, unreported harm or lived safety |
| Health and service | Care, injuries, pregnancy, referral, shelter and support pathways | All incidents, causes or justice outcomes |
| Population and qualitative | Experience, barriers, perception, context and hidden harm | Case-specific legal facts or complete real-time counts |
Evidence contract: source · definition · geography · population · period · method · subgroup · uncertainty · verification · privacy.
Maternal & Newborn Health Continuum
Prepare before pregnancy, detect risk early, deliver safely and support recovery.
Zero Preventable Maternal Death
Confidentially review each maternal death or severe morbidity, identify clinical and system causes and assign district corrective action.
The complete pathway must identify prevention, access, trained people, infrastructure, information, emergency or referral route, lawful data use, accountable institution, finance, follow-up, correction and learning.
Protect choice, repair delivery and test the strongest intervention.
Create a woman-held, consent-based continuum plan.
Measure content and timeliness of care, not visits alone.
Map referral time and facility readiness before emergencies.
Review severe morbidity and mortality for corrective system action.
Protect now, pilot carefully and institutionalise verified improvement.
Define and protect
Verify the local problem, immediate risk, current service, accountable actor, legal or clinical duty and safe support route.
Diagnose and design
Map the complete journey, evidence gaps, causes, affected subgroups, alternatives, safeguards, cost and maintenance.
Bounded pilot
Track one district cohort from preconception or early registration through six weeks postpartum, repairing the largest continuity and referral failures.
Evaluate and transform
Scale only after independent review of benefit, fairness, capability, cost, rights, privacy and unintended harm.
Track safety, health, agency and service quality—not activity alone.
A women-safety intervention must never reduce women’s freedom or dignity.
- RequiredDigital exclusion or privacy breachNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredRisk scores replacing clinical judgementNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredWomen blamed for missed contacts caused by system barriersNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredSurvivor-led choice and informed consent where applicableNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredDue process, human accountability and appealNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredQualified clinical, forensic, legal and safeguarding expertiseNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredPrivacy-safe publication and controlled sensitive data accessNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.
- RequiredNo coercive family planning, victim blaming or autonomous AI judgmentNamed owner, evidence, review date and remedy required.