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Background Postpartum hemorrhage is a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide, with uterine atony responsible in 80% of cases. In intractable cases, hysterectomy is the final treatment, but it has complications. Many doctors in developing countries with high maternal mortality rates from postpartum hemorrhage can perform cesarean deliveries but cannot perform hysterectomy. Patients with postpartum hemorrhage who need hysterectomy in these countries will die in such cases, whereas, if doctors know this simple, easily learned technique, such patients may survive. Technique Esike's technique is a uterine-compression method that uses supplies generally available at delivery hospitals. Six sutures are placed in the lower uterine segment, three anteriorly and three posteriorly. Starting with the middle sutures, the sutures are tied at the fundus with the help of an assistant to provide uterine compression. The more laterally placed sutures are then tied similarly, resulting in uterine compression and stoppage of postpartum hemorrhage. Experience Esike's technique was used in controlling life-threatening, uncontrollable postpartum hemorrhage in 18 women and was successful in 16 (89%) without requiring hysterectomy. Conclusion Esike's technique is effective in controlling life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage and can be used in low-resource settings with commonly available supplies and performed by doctors with a common level of training.

Introduction: Cancer of the cervix is the second commonest cancer among women worldwide, the commonest female genital‑tract malignancy in Nigeria, and one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among women in Nigeria. Health workers are the trusted source of medical information and their attitude and practice toward diseases of public health importance like cervical cancer are very critical if the country must make progress toward the prevention of such diseases. This work assesses the knowledge, attitude, and practice of Nigeria’s specialist doctors in training toward cervical cancer and its methods of screening because this is critical to its prevention in the country.Materials and Methods: This is a cross‑sectional study involving the administration of pretested structured questionnaire to fifty specialist Nigerian doctors in training in various disciplines from different parts of the country.Results: The knowledge of the participants regarding cervical cancer and its screening is very good, with an average of 98%, but their attitude toward cervical cancer screening is poor as only 7 (14%) had ever recommended a woman for cervical cancer screening. The practice of cervical cancer screening among the participants is poor as only 5 (22.7%) of the 22 female doctors in training had ever screened for cervical cancer and only one male specialist doctor in training out of the 28 of them had the partner screened for cervical cancer before this study. Only 4 (9%) of the 28 males had ever recommended cervical cancer screening to their female partner and 44 (88%) of the specialist doctors in training had never spoken to any organization about cervical cancer screening.Conclusion: Though the knowledge of Nigerian specialist doctors in training on cancer of the cervix and its screening is very good, their attitude to it and practice are very poor.Keywords: Attitude; cervical cancer screening; knowledge; Nigerian specialist doctors; practice

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is the most common type of cancer affecting the genital tract among women in developing countries. Screening programmes have been well talked about in Nigeria, but they are not well organized. Hence, the incidence of cervical cancer does not appear to be reducing. A possible way of solving this problem is by doing an opportunistic pap smear among women attending antenatal clinics, since a good number of women do access antenatal care. OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence, knowledge, awareness, practice, risk factors and pattern of Pap smear among women attending antenatal clinic in Mile 4 hospital, Abakaliki. METHOD: This is a cross-sectional study carried out at the antenatal clinic of Mile 4 Hospital, Abakaliki, Nigeria. A total of 110 consecutive pregnant women who fulfilled the inclusion criteria and have given their consent were recruited into the study at the time of their first prenatal (booking clinic) visit for antenatal care. Data was collected using a questionnaire. Conventional Papanicolaou smear was taken using the standard procedure. The cytopathologic findings were documented in the questionnaire. RESULTS: Out of the 110 pregnant women who had cervical cytology by Pap smear, 7 had pre-invasive cervical lesion, giving a prevalence rate of 6.3%; 5 (71.4%) were low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LGSIL) while 2 (28.6%) were high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HGSIL). Fifty women (45.5%) had negative smears. Inflammatory smears were seen in 50 women (45.5%). Insufficient smear was seen in 3 women (2.7%). Fifty-six women had knowledge about cervical cancer (50.9%), while thirty-six women (32.7%) were aware of a screening program for cervical cancer and only 2 women (1.8%) had been screened in the past. Hence, from this study, the population screening rate was approximately 2%. The risk factors were age of coitarche

Introduction: Eclampsia is one of the most dreaded causes of adverse outcomes of pregnancy worldwide. It is one of the greatest causes of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality world over. We do not know the prevalence, management outcome, and the devastation caused by this dreaded disease in our center hence the need for this work. Materials and Methods: This is a 7-year retrospective review of all cases of eclampsia managed in Mater Misericordiae Hospital Afikpo, a rural secondary cum referral Catholic Mission Hospital in Afikpo, Ebonyi State in Southeastern Nigeria. Results: The prevalence of eclampsia in our center is 1.12% or one case of eclampsia for every 89 women that delivered in our facility. The majority of the women that had eclampsia in our center 56 (71.8%) were primigravidae. Seventeen women (21.8%) had various antenatal complications with 4 or 23.6% presenting with intrauterine fetal deaths and two (11.8%) each with intrauterine growth restriction, and domestic violence, respectively. Thirty-five or 44.9% of the women were delivered by emergency lower segment cesarean section. Fifteen or 17.9% babies were dead giving a perinatal mortality rate of 174 per 1,000After delivery, and 3 (3.8%) of the women had postpartum hemorrhage. Two women (2.6%) died giving a maternal mortality ratio of 2564 per 100,000 deliveries. Conclusion: Eclampsia is a dreaded obstetric disease with adverse fetal and maternal consequences that are not mitigating, and no effort should be spared in managing it effectively including public enlightenment.

Introduction: Family planning is very important and confers huge benefits to the woman, her family and country. It helps reduce maternal morbidity and mortality among other benefits. In spite of these obvious benefits of and the huge expenditure on it, uptake by women continues to be very low. We conducted this study to find out the reasons for this low uptake in our practice environment.Methodology: This is a cross sectional study where structured pre-tested questionnaires were administered to women in Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi State from February to April 2015.Results: Of the 354 questionnaires administered, 330 (93.2%) were complete and used for analysis. Majority of the respondents, 285 (86.4%) were in the 26 to 30 years age bracket. All of them were Ibos. Sixty two(18.8%) of the participants had one of their pregnancies unplanned and 19(5.7%) had at least one of their pregnancies unwanted. Though 300 (90.9%) had heard of family planning and was aware of it, only 180(54.5%) had used a family planning method before with majority, 105(58.2%) using natural family planning method. Only 22.7% of the participants was using a family planning method at the time of the study. In majority of the women, 166(50.3%) ,their fears about family planning was the troublesome side effects followed by 110(33.3%) whose husbands objected to their using family planning. Twenty seven women (8.2%) respectively did not use family planning because it is against their culture and religion.Conclusion: Though some progress have been made in family planning, a lot more will be achieved if new programmes are designed to involve the men more actively and address other identified fears among women with regards to family planning.Keywords: Abakaliki; barrier; family planning acceptance; Nigeria

Guillain–Barre syndrome (GBS) complicating pregnancy is a rare event, with documented incidence of 1–3 per 100,000 people annually. Maternal and perinatal mortality rate of >10% is associated with GBS. We present a 28-year-old gravida four para three housewife who developed progressive ascending paralysis during the second trimester of pregnancy. A detailed history and physical examination led to the clinical diagnosis of GBS; she had a preceding gastrointestinal infective episode. She did not consent to lumbar puncture for cerebrospinal fluid analysis, but all investigation results were normal. She was managed supportively as an in-patient with physiotherapy in conjunction with the physiotherapists. Her symptoms improved and she was discharged after 12 days. The rest of the pregnancy progressed uneventfully, and she had a spontaneous vertex delivery of a live female baby that weighed 2.55 kg with good Apgar scores, after 8 h of uncomplicated labour at term. She did not have any postpartum complications, and the neonate was healthy and normal.