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One Woman Dies in Childbirth Every Minute in Poor Countries:WHO
AFP
2004-09-30

Giving birth in poor countries proves fatal for more than half a million women every year, or one every minute, the World Health Organisation said, warning preventable deaths have reached epidemic levels.

"Every minute of every day, at least one woman in the developing countries dies in childbirth," WHO said in a statement released in Nairobi. WHO blamed the crisis on "unavailable, inaccessible or poor quality care," noting the main causes of maternal deaths in poor countries were haemorrhage, infections, hypertensive disorders, obstructive labour and unsafe abortion.

The UN agency estimates that "maternal deaths are under-reported by as much as 50 percent, because deaths are not classified correctly or not counted at all." "If dead women are not even counted, then it seems they do not count. We have reached an epidemic, said WHO's Assistant Director-General for Family and Community Health Joy Phumaphi.

"Women should not die giving birth, their deaths are preventable, even in the poorest countries,&Quot she added. "Sixty-two countries around the world are not able to give us reliable statistics about the women who are dying in pregnancy, childbirth or after childbirth", Phumaphi added. The epidemic is invisible. Because governments cannot tell how many women die, they do not realize what the problems are and no steps are taken to address this problem or alleviate the suffering of these women, she added.

Out of every 100,000 live births, 830 mothers die in Africa, 330 in Asia, 190 in Latin America and the Caribbean while only 20 die in the developed world, which is represented by an average of 400 deaths worldwide, according to 2000 United Nations data. Nigeria, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Angola, Kenya, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan account for two-thirds of 529,000 maternal deaths, the same data showed.

"In some developing regions, a woman has a one in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy and childbirth" compared to a one in 2,800 risk for women in a developed region," WHO said. Out of every eight girls born today, one of them will die in pregnancy," said Khama Rogo, World Bank's lead health sector specialist.

Rogo explained that effective family planning, which has failed in most African countries, would cut unnecessary deaths by 40 percent. Less than 10 percent of health resources in Africa are well utilised, essentially because of lack of planning, choosing wrong priorities and lack of political will, he told AFP. If we could direct our resources at the right place, then maternal deaths would not be a problem whatsoever, Rogo added.

WHO Director of Family and Reproductive Health Doyin Oluwole warned of a wide tragedy in the continent if African governments failed to put in place policies to reverse the situation. If we do nothing to reverse the trend in maternal and newborn mortality in Africa, over the next 10 years, there will be at least 2.5 million maternal deaths, 49 million maternal disabilities, resulting to 7.5 million child deaths and 45 billion dollars in productivity loss, she added.

"The effects are tragically amplified as some one million children are left motherless each year. This children are 10 times more likely to die in childhood than children whose mothers have not died," WHO said. On Wednesday, WHO together with 20 partners, will launch a 10-million-dollar world-wide initiative, dubbed "Beyond the Numbers", which will focus on training health planners in 20 high-risk countries on ways to cutting childbirth deaths. (Source: Agence France-Presse, 29 September 2004)

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