Obstructed labour contributes significantly to the morbidity and mortality among both
mothers and babies in Ethiopia nationwide, and also in the West-Wollega region where
this study was conducted. The researcher used a retrospective hospital based review of
maternity files to quantify the problem of obstructed labour in the selected hospital. The
findings revealed that maternal and perinatal mortality due to obstructed labour
amounted to 1.4% and 7.5% respectively. Most of these complications could be
prevented by proper antenatal care and careful attentive monitoring during delivery with
proper use of the partogram which will indicate the occurrence of complications in good
time when successful and life saving interventions are still available.
The findings clearly show that poor documentation in general and very sporadic usage
of the partogram in particular contributes significantly to the complications for mother
and child. Re-introduction of proper documentation and careful use of the partogram are
advocated.