To what extent does the ongoing political crisis imperil the life of mothers and new born in Côte d'Ivoire?

Background Cote d'Ivoire is a developing country of the Sub-Saharan Africa where an armed conflict occurred since September 19, 2002 generating displaced and refugee populations. This study aims to measure the extent to which the ongoing political crisis imperils life of mothers and new born in Côte d'Ivoire.

Methods We carried out a retrospective cohort study from April 2005 to September 2005. To verify that differential exposure to military crisis occurred between the control and cohort groups, statistical tests including Chi-square of Mantel Haenzel and p-value were performed.

Results The public health consequences of the mass population displacement have resulted in at least 5% of childbirth at home was associated with a greater probability among the women of childbearing age in the cohort group (p<0.001) from 2002 to 2003.In the besieged zone, from 25 percent to 45 percent of pregnancy to women of childbearing age resulted in stillborn (p<0.001). As regard the recording of newborn with a low birth weight, an important difference exists between control and cohort groups with p<0.001 and the attributable risk increased significantly from 22 to 32 percent (2002 through 2003). All these poor pregnancy outcomes can be attributed to the political crisis and might be therefore eliminated if the crisis did not exist.

Conclusion It emerges from this study that the political crisis had affected adversely the pregnancy outcomes and newborn health. These study results have potential to rise awareness and to stimulate change for peace in Côte d'Ivoire.