The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported Friday that 536,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth every year, often due to lack of emergency obstetrical care.
In its report entitled “Progress for Children: A Report Card on Maternal Mortality”, the agency wrote that lack of adequate funding and political will were largely responsible for the world’s maternal mortality number, which has remained relatively consistent despite modest gains in Asia.
According to the report, around 50 million births in the developing world, roughly 40 percent of births worldwide, are not attended by trained medical staff. During 2005, more than 99 percent of the maternal deaths worldwide occurred in developing countries, with half in sub-Saharan Africa.
“One of the critical bottlenecks has always been access to highly skilled health workers required to deliver emergency obstetrical care, particularly caesarian sections,” said Peter Salama, UNICEF’s chief of health, during a press briefing.
In Africa and Asia, hemorrhaging is the leading cause of maternal death, responsible for one in three deaths, the report said. Other causes include Infections, complications of abortion, hypertensive disorders, obstructed labor or HIV/AIDS are other causes, most of which can be easily treated in emergency health facilities with properly trained personnel.
“The lifetime risk of maternal death in the developing world as a whole is 1 in 76, compared with 1 in 8,000 in the industrialized world,” said UNICEF.
Niger is the highest risk place to give birth, where women face a lifetime risk of 1 in 7 dying during pregnancy or childbirth. In Sierra Leone, their risk of death is 1 in 8.
However, some developing countries, such as Mozambique and Sri Lanka, have reduced maternal mortality rates through a combination of emergency obstetrical care, family planning, training skilled birth attendants and post-natal care, all of which are critical to reducing maternal mortality, the agency said.
Considering the current annual average reduction rate of less than one per cent, the world will fall short of the Millennium Development Goals goal of reducing maternal mortality rates by 75 percent between 1990 and 2015, to less than 150,000.
“The time is right. We now know exactly what to do for maternal mortality reduction to make this one of the next big issues in global health,” Salama told Reuters.
Initiatives to fight epidemics in HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis now have the necessary international attention and funding, he said.
“But maternal mortality and child mortality do not yet receive the attention that the scale of the problem deserves.”
Salama said an additional $10 billion a year would be required to combat both child and maternal mortality.
Last week the agency reported that during 2007 more than 9 million children died before their fifth birthday. Although the number represents a slight decrease from 2006, widespread disparities remain between rich and poor nations, UNICEF said.
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