The other main important point here is to know the critical time in which maternal and neonatal death will occur. Most of maternal and neonatal death will occur from the time of delivery up tothe first week of the postnatal period. Can you suggest why? Because, the time from delivery to the first seven days is the time which could be associated with different life threatening conditions both on the mother and the neonate. For instance, to remind you some of the dangerous situations those will occur immediately after delivery is postpartum hemorrhage (which you have learnt it in your labor and delivery module) which means vaginal bleeding after the child is born. At this time unless you immediately respond to the situation, the mother will lose her life while she is giving life. Let us see the following table and we will return to our discussion.

Deaths after delivery	% of death Within 24hours	% of death up to first seven days
Maternal death	45	65
Neonatal death	50	75

Table1 - 4: - Table showing the critical time in which maternal and neonatal death will occur.

What do you understand from the information given there? You are given 1 minute to discuss it with your friend beside you.
From the above table one can understand, out of 100 mothers who gave birth, 45 mothers will die within 24 hours, or 65 of them will die within the first seven days; In addition to that, from 100 new born babies who was born alive, 50 of them will die within 24 hours, or 75 of them will die within the first seven days. All these deaths will occur during the postnatal period. Do you know why? It is because of the lack of proper and effective postnatal care, they die due to what you have seen in tables 1&2 above.