Maternal health
Every year, more than half a million women die from complications in pregnancy or childbirth. An estimated 300 million women worldwide - a quarter of the developing world's adult women - are currently disabled or ill as a result of pregnancy. Almost all deaths could be prevented if all mothers had access to a skilled midwife or doctor during childbirth and effective emergency care if complications occur.
Unfortunately, many of the poorest countries currently don't have the sort of effective, functioning health systems that would enable them to do this. Currently a poor woman in the poorest countries is over 200 times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth than a woman in a developed country. Common complications include bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, prolonged or obstructed labour and complications associated with abortion.
The lack of professional healthcare also has an impact on newborn babies. Each year, three million babies die within their first week of life. Improved maternal health could prevent up to 70% of these neonatal deaths. Older children suffer from this situation as well, with up to two million children every year being orphaned because their mother has died as a result of complications in pregnancy or childbirth.
What needs to be done?
Countries need to have a good health system which can be accessed and used by everyone, particularly poorer women. This would ensure that all women have access to a medical professional when they go into labour. Other problems to be tackled include:
- lack of education about family planning and access to these services
- unequal status and rights for women
- cultural practices - such as early marriage
Delaying marriage and the birth of a first child, preventing unwanted pregnancies and eliminating unsafe abortions would help to cut the number of maternal deaths by up to a third.
Millennium Development Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Target 6: Between 1990 and 2015, reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters.