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.

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