No Woman Should Die Giving Life
For poor girls and women in developing countries, the chances of surviving a delivery has not changed over the last 20 years. In some countries, the situation has in fact worsened.
In four out of five cases, women die due to an obstetric complication and resulting severe bleeding. These are needless deaths that could be prevented.
Health experts agree on the core strategies for saving women's lives. These are access to:
- Family Planning to prevent unwanted pregnancies
- Skilled care for a pregnant woman by a midwife, nurse or doctor, especially in childbirth
- Access to emergency care for women with life-threatening complications
Experience shows that this can be provided relatively quickly, even in challenging settings: Sri Lanka and Vietnam has substantially reduced maternal mortality despite low gross national incomes. Countries such as Egypt, Honduras, Malaysia and Thailand have halved their maternal death rates in the space of a decade.
We have the knowledge.
Investing in women's health, and ultimately rights, has not been a priority, not at international nor at country-level. Redressing this neglect is long overdue.
Greater political will and funding is urgently needed so that women's lives can be saved.
ACT NOW PUSH for change.
THEFACTS
42 % of all pregnancies worldwide suffer complications, and in 15 % of all pregnancies, the complications are life-threatening.
Help make a change: PUSH for mothers worldwide.
Find out more at Safe Motherhood
www.unfpa.org/mothers
Family Fedaration of Finland
www.vaestoliitto.fi
PUSHFORCHANGE > |
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© Marja-Leena Salin
Midwives. The Unsung Heroines of Maternal Health.
In all countries that have achieved dramatic improvements in maternal mortality, trained midwives have been key to success. Midwives introduce women to the health system and ensure that women and their babies receive skilled care during pregnancy, childbirth, and in the important days and weeks after birth. Their work calls for great stamina and ability to meet the unexpected: an un-booked birth, undiagnosed twins, or complications, to name a few. Yet midwives often carry out their duties with little support and under difficult conditions. Midwives are also in very short supply. Countries with high rates of maternal mortality, in particular, need urgent assistance to recruit, train and support professional midwives. PUSH to support the training of a midwife.
A woman resting next to her newborn child at the UNFPA-supported maternity ward in Samarkand's Provincial Hospital, Uzbekistan. Maternal health has improved here over the last decade, with over 95 % of all births in the country taking place with trained assistance in hospitals, clinics or primary health care facilities
© Don Hinrichsen/UNFPA
"I suffered a lot during labour," says Zainab Abdu, pictured here at Babbar Ruga Fistula Hospital in Nigeria. "When I was in that agony, I was thinking, 'Is this the way that other women suffer?' I asked for help, but nobody was ready to assist me." Zainab is one of the women and girls treated for obstetric fistula in Nigeria through support from UNFPA.
© Teun Voeten
"I suffered a lot during labour," says Zainab Abdu, pictured here at Babbar Ruga Fistula Hospital in Nigeria. "When I was in that agony, I was thinking, 'Is this the way that other women suffer?' I asked for help, but nobody was ready to assist me." Zainab is one of the women and girls treated for obstetric fistula in Nigeria through support from UNFPA. © Richard Stanley/UNFPA
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