Sickle cell disease and maternal mortality in Nigeria

Abstract

Nigerian continues to bear the greatest burden of sickle cell disease in Sub-Saharan Africa. This disease is more critical in pregnancy and many of such pregnancies result in maternal mortality. Importantly, not much research had been conducted in sickle cell disease and maternal mortality in Nigeria. This paper reviewed sickle cell disease and maternal mortality in Nigeria. Literature was sourced from books, pubmed and google search engines. The search terms were sickle cell disease, maternal mortality and Nigeria and relevant published articles were reviewed. The review indicated that the reviewed articles were all hospital based studies. This paper then moved for community and household studies in order to obtain a fuller-clearer picture of the problem. The paper thus brought out the importance of medical sociologists in sickle cell disease research. High maternal mortality and high health complications due to sickle cell disease were also indicated. This paper therefore concludes that sickle cell disease is a push factor in the Nigerian high maternal mortality status.