Maternal Deaths Resulting in Poverty
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) says 99% of maternal deaths are preventable yet every minute a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes.
This loss impacts not only on the family and society, but also on the economy, its latest report says. UNFPA says investment in reproductive health and gender equality could spur growth and sustainable development.
Preventable killers
An estimated 529,000 women died from complications of pregnancy and childbirth in 2000, virtually all in developing countries.
For every woman who dies, roughly 20 more suffer serious injury or disability - between 8 million and 20 million a year.
Experts agree that the majority of maternal deaths are preventable through family planning to reduce unintended pregnancies, skilled attendance at all deliveries and timely emergency obstetric care in all cases where complications arise.
One of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by world experts in 2000 was to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio by 2015. Major reductions in the number of deaths have taken place in countries with either low or moderate levels of maternal mortality. Similar progress, however, has not been made in countries where maternal mortality is high.
Executive director of UNFPA Thoraya Obaid said: "The problem is implementation and monitoring implementation. You have to spend more on healthcare and on looking after women. If women are healthy then they can jump start the life of their family and the economy."
"In no other area of health are the disparities between rich and poor so wide and the tragic consequences so utterly immoral," she told a news conference at the Foreign Press Association in
Daamini Shrivastav,
Campaign Reporter
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