This study used an analytical cross-sectional design to identify risk factors associated with delays in care-seeking among women admitted in life-threatening conditions to a maternity hospital in Herat, Afghanistan, from February 2007 to January 2008. Disease-specific criteria of 'near-miss' were used to identify women in life-threatening conditions. Among 472 eligible women and their husbands, 411 paired interviews were conducted, and information on socio-demographic factors; the woman's status and social resources; the husband's social networks; health care accessibility and utilisation; care-seeking costs; and community characteristics were obtained. Decision and departure delays were assessed quantitatively from reported timings of symptom recognition, care-seeking decision, and departure for health facilities. Censored normal regression analyses suggest that although determinants of decision delay were influenced by the nature and symptoms of complications, uptake of antenatal care (ANC) and the birth plan reduced decision delay at the time of the obstetric emergency. Access to care and social networks reduced departure delay. Programmatic efforts may be directed towards exploiting the roles of ANC and social resources in facilitating access to emergency obstetric care.

Incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) is a tree native to Oregon and California, perhaps best known for its aromatic wood and use in teh manufacturing of pencils. The wood is also highly values for its decorative appearance and durability in lumber, related sawmill products, and fence posts. Chemical investigations of heartwood extracts have shown the prescence of carvacrol, thymoquinone, related p-cymene and p-menthane based phenols, tropolones. Heartwood durability was shown to be mainly due to the high concentration of the p-cymene phenols, such as carvacol, but as the wood ages these are converted to non-fungicidal compounds, resulting in decreasing durability. Recent investigations have found the steam distilled essential oil from heartwood to have significant biological activity against arthropods of public health importance such as fleas, ticks, and mosquitos, as well as Phytophthora ramorum, the organism responsible for Sudden Oak Death. In this paper we report on the GC-MS analysis of this essential oil. Nakatsuka and Hirose were first to describe the essential oil of incense cedar wood, but the oil had not yet been analyzed by modern methods. In the present paper the GC-MS analysis of this essential oil will be reported.