Data resulting from a collaborative study between UK and Burkina Faso researchers into the impact of severe obstetric complications and their treatment on economic, social and physical well-being, and sustained ill-health and impoverishment over a 4 year period. It builds on a previous study of 1014 women in Burkina Faso which compares the consequences of severe (“near-miss”) complications with normal facility-based births up to one year postpartum.This ESRC-Hewlett study re-interviewed the women at home during the third and fourth years postpartum, using qualitative and quantitative methods to assess long-term economic, social and health effects. We added a new comparison group of women from the same neighbourhood to gain broader insights. This dataset includes: • year 3 interviews with women interviewed in IMMPACT study, consisting of 2 datasets with 145 variables and 192 variables resp. (n=763); • year 3 interviews with new control group of women, consisting of 2 datasets with 295 variables and 195 variables resp. (n=360); • year 3 interviews with head of household dataset with 301 variables (n=907); • child development assessment dataset with 89 variables (n=515); • year 4 interviews with women, consisting of 2 datasets with 219 variables and 187 variables resp. (n=994); • dataset on migration and loss of surveyed women to follow-up (12 variables) containing all women interviewed at one point or the other (n=1331). Women in Africa face the risk that something can go wrong in childbirth many times over during the course of their lives.  Emergency obstetric care (such as caesarean section) may save their lives, but their health and ability to work afterwards may be affected, and the high costs of the hospital treatment can cause great financial difficulties, pushing families into poverty. The study will document the long-term impact of complications on the economic and social well-being of women and their families. It will build on a recent study of 1013 women in Burkina Faso which investigated the health, economic and social consequences of obstetric complications and normal births in health facilities up to one year after birth. The study will re-contact the participants at 3 and 4 years after birth, and include an additional group of women from the community who delivered around the same time. Information will be collected on what has happened since the index birth to household income, belongings, debts and consumption, to women’s mental and physical health and social situation, to their ability to earn money, work in production and in the home, the survival and development of the children, and to decisions about future pregnancies.

The study took place in the catchment areas (30 km radius) of 7 referral hospitals in 6 towns in Burkina Faso. We collected quantitative data on 1331 women (some of these are from a dataset which we collected but is already open-access with IMMPACT, University of Aberdeen). We contacted 1014 women again in year 3 (June-December 2008) and year 4 postpartum (September-December 2009) and were able to re-interview 73% of the original sample. We recruited an additional comparison group of 310 women In addition, we interviewed 820 heads of households, and assessed the heath of 896 surviving children. We also conducted child development tests with a sub-sample of 514 children. In addition, we carried out qualitative interviews. In order to examine changes over time, we selected a sub-sample of women who had taken part in in-depth interviews in the original study who had received a near-miss diagnosis and who resided in two of the peri-urban study sites. 16 women were traced and re-interviewed. To investigate the impact of specifically traumatic experiences, we selected a sample including all cohort women classified as having received a near-miss diagnosis and delivery by emergency c-section in three of the study sites, as well as a randomly generated sample of women from one of the two largest study sites who fulfilled the selection criteria. This sample included 21 women. Study design: cohort study, with as components: • baseline data collected at hospital discharge, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months postpartum (IMMPACT Open Access Dataset); • follow-up data collected in years 3 and 4 postpartum (Hewlett/ESRC Dataset) Instruments used are: • Face to face structured interviews with women and heads of household, including biological samples (haemoglobin), and use of GPS; • Child development assessment with children; • In depth interviews.