"Near-miss" events are more common than maternal deaths and studies can therefore be more comprehensive and provide additional information, review of "near-miss" events may give more insight into risk factors and possible means of prevention, particularly in facilities where deaths are uncommon and events associated with death may not be typical. As the woman survives, near miss reviews may be seen as less threatening than death reviews for the teams reporting the same. However we need to also consider that Near Miss Reviews come with their own set of challenges of defining the cases, and may also lead to wrongly placed trust in Health Care providers thus leading to complacency.

International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) has been awarded a grant by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to implement a project on "Improving Maternal and Newborn Health in low resource countries through Strengthening the Roles of Obstetric and Gynecological National Associations" as a major maternal and newborn health Initiative.

FIGO has selected The Federation of Obstetric and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI) to participate in this initiative as the lead organization and Our team members as the project management unit for implementing all aspects of the project.

Under the larger umbrella of Maternal Death Review (MDR), FOGSI in partnership with Government of India – MH Division/Avni and Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (OBGYN Department) – Sevagram, have initiated design and development (for pilot implementation) of a Near Miss program which will give additional value to complement information being received from the reviews of maternal deaths implementation.