Latest progress

The happiest day in most mothers’ lives is the most dangerous one. The risk of death in pregnancy and childbirth remains as high as 1 in 30 in sub-Saharan Africa [1].  Goal 5 seeks to continue and accelerate the progress in decreasing maternal mortality rates [2]. Canada’s presidency in the G8 focussed on Goals 4 and 5 especially, so the renewed commitments should lead to further progress.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) aims to use family planning and contraception programmes to prevent some 33 million unwanted pregnancies before the MDG deadline.  In some countries this will remain a difficult target to reach [3], but it should help save the lives of poor women at risk of dying due to complications in pregnancy caused by malnourishment, and also save lives from the horrific practice of unsafe abortion.

The current WHO report focuses on how countries can respond to the financial crisis whilst improving healthcare [4].  It identifies that in some countries the chance of being attended to in pregnancy by a trained health worker remains less than 1 in 10 and that within countries there is often a rich-poor divide.  To overcome this disparity, three fundamental principles are identified: resources must be made available services must not be withheld due to inability to make direct payments at the time of treatment and resources must be used more efficiently than current practice.  The WHO praises Brazil, Cambodia, China, Chile, Gabon, Mexico, Rwanda, and Thailand for implementing healthcare reforms that meet these principles, highlighting Gabon’s levy on mobil phone use to raise funds for healthcare.

On the 100^th international Women’s Day, a striking new initiative was set up called Saving Lives at Birth [5]. It is a collaboration of governments and charities keen to see an end to deaths during childbirth.  The major dangers of haemorrhaging, hypertension and infection are all treatable in safe settings.  However, rural communities stuck in poverty and without trained professionals, hospitals, transport links, electricity and other factors (such as cultural beliefs) make the problems harder to solve.  Saving lives at Birth is looking for ingenious ways of reaching rural communities to enable safe childbearing practices.  Coupled with the progress already made, thanks to the spotlight from MDG 5, initiatives can turn the most dangerous day in a mothers life into the happiest one.

[1] WHO statistics

[2] MDG 5 Targets and Indicators

[3] Philippines National Statistics

[4] WHO Report

[5] Saving Lives at Birth initiative