Lagos State University Teaching Hospital in Nigeria. UNICEF works with the Government of Nigeria and partners to consolidate gains in girls' education, integrated early child development, health & HIV/AIDS education.© UNICEF/CHRISTINE NESBITT
Gamal Serour
Poverty, gender inequity, illiteracy, nutritional taboos, and harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation and child marriage impede women’s ability to experience full reproductive rights and safe motherhood.
Gamal Serour
It is a startling and sobering fact that every minute of every day, a woman dies in pregnancy and childbirth somewhere in the world. This equates to more than half a million women dying in pregnancy and childbirth every year, with 99 per cent of these tragedies occurring in developing countries.
According to the United Nations Population Fund, the divide between rich and poor is truly alarming: in Africa, the lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 22, in Asia it is 1 in 120 and in developed countries it is 1 in
7,300.
Maternal mortality across the developing world is therefore unacceptably high. Although most maternal deaths are preventable, satisfying the aim of Millennium Development Goal 5, to improve maternal health, is still proving extremely difficult. There is simply not enough being done to protect the health of mothers and infants in underserved, low- and middle-resource countries. In essence, poor women receive less care.
CLEAR TARGETS - DIFFICULT CHALLENGES
The targets are clear-sighted enough, and have been present on the global agenda for many years. The first target of Millennium Development Goal 5 is to reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio; the second is to achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health. The survival of mothers across the globe is a major human rights issue. This critical ongoing priority within international development can be summarized in these crucial requirements: all women should be able to access contraception, including emergency contraception, to avoid unwanted pregnancies; all pregnant women need access to professional care at delivery; and all pregnant women experiencing complications need immediate access to quality emergency obstetric care.
THE NEED FOR SKILLED HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
The majority of maternal deaths stem from the results of sepsis, severe bleeding, obstructed labour, eclampsia, and the consequences of unsafe abortion. Solutions are readily available, but innumerable barriers exist to thwart effective and timely prevention, and these can vary among cultures. A major hurdle in low-resource countries is a lack of access to skilled care professionals to perform essential interventions. Almost all maternal deaths could be averted if access to professional care during pregnancy, childbirth, and for a few weeks after childbirth were readily available.
