According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), one woman dies every minute from complications in pregnancy or childbirth somewhere in the world which adds up to 14,000 women each day. They die from lack of family planning, skilled birth attendance or emergency obstetric care. Each minute, 110 women experience complications from their pregnancy. In Africa, 1 in 16 women risk dying from these complications. In a developed country, the risk drops dramatically to 1 in 2,800. Despite many efforts, an unacceptable number of women continue to die in childbirth, for a variety of reasons.

Increasingly, maternal health is interlinked with a number of other issues that exacerbate reproductive health, including women’s poverty, deeply rooted gender inequities, poor education, conflicts, natural disaster, lack of empowerment and social exclusion. The AIDS epidemic has complicated pregnancy outcomes, strained public health budgets and overwhelmed health care systems. Tuberculosis and parasitic diseases, such as malaria, continue to exact a high toll on health and health care. In some countries, maternal mortality rates have risen. [The UNFPA website provides comparative data (including indicators/policy development; country/territory profiles; country technical services teams; regional overviews and news) for each country on maternal and infant mortality, reproductive health and gender equality (http://www.unfpa.org/worldwide).]

Working for the survival of mothers is a human rights imperative. It also has enormous socio-economic ramifications – and is a crucial international development priority. Both the International Conference on Population and Development and  the Millennium Development Goals have called for a 75% reduction in maternal mortality between 1990 and 2015.

Many of the women who die in childbirth could have been saved if a skilled birth attendant, such as a nurse or midwife, had been present. To help increase awareness around the shortage of midwives and other factors impacting maternal and infant health, International Day of Midwives is celebrated each year on 5 May. This year’s theme is “Midwives reach out to women – wherever they live.”

UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid, in her message commemorating the day, paid tribute to midwives around the world. “In every country, women and families count on midwives to ensure a safe delivery and healthy newborn. Midwives make a tremendous contribution to the health of mothers and babies worldwide.

“Yet, one half of the world’s pregnant women still lack access to skilled care at childbirth and the consequences are devastating. Every year, an estimated 529,000 women die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, 4 million newborn die, and another 4 million babies are stillborn. This is more than the combined total of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria deaths. In addition, 10 million more women suffer debilitating injuries such as infertility, uterine prolapse or obstetric fistula. Skilled assistance is critical to lowering the number of women killed or injured while giving birth. It is estimated that ensuring skilled attendance in delivery, backed up by emergency obstetric care, could reduce maternal deaths by about 75%,” Ms. Obaid stressed.

UNFPA is calling for greater investment in the training, recruitment, pay and working conditions of midwives as some 700,000 more midwives are needed to provide universal access to skilled care at birth.

Calling on governments and their partners to increase investment in reproductive health as an urgent priority, Ms. Obaid noted the 20th anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, a global network of governments, donors, and women’s health advocates working to protect the health and lives of women during pregnancy and childbirth. “With this year marking the 20th anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, there is no better time than now to strengthen health systems and health workforces to protect the health of mothers, children and families,” she stressed.

In addition to midwives, what saves mothers’ lives includes family planning and emergency obstetric care. UNFPA’s work to prevent fistula isalso making pregnancy safer by calling attention to health systems that are failing to meet the needs of women during the very critical time of childbirth.

More information on these and other strategies for saving mothers’ lives can be found as follows:
o        Emergency obstetric care: http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/obstetric.htm
o        Skilled attendance at birth: http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/skilled_att.htm
o        Injuries at birth (obstetric fistula): http://www.unfpa.org/mothers/fistula.htm

UNFPA’s Three-Pronged Strategy for Reducing Maternal Mortality Includes:

All women have access to contraception to avoid unintended pregnancies;

All pregnant women have access to skilled care at the time of birth;

All those with complications have timely access to quality emergency obstetric care.

The prospects for scaling up successful efforts in low-income countries increased with the launch in 2005 of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. The partnership is mobilizing global and local action to reduce deaths among mothers, newborns and children, promote universal coverage of essential interventions, and advocate for increased resources for scaling up these efforts.

The Partnership held its first Partners’ Forum from 17-20 April 2007 in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), bringing together public health leaders and advocates to focus on the urgent need for greater global and national commitments and resources, and to reverse the poor state of maternal, newborn and child health in poor countries. The Partnership consists of more than 120 member organizations, including national governments, UN agencies, donor agencies, foundations, health care professionals, NGOs and academics. Further information is available online: (http://www.who.int/pmnch).

Contact: Katja Iversen, Media Specialist, UNFPA, 220 East 42nd Street, New York NY 10017, USA, telephone +1-212/297 5016, fax +1-212/557 6416, e-mail iversen@unfpa.org , website: http://www.unfpa.org

Additional Resources:
UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid’s message for International Day of the Midwife in English http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=967&Language=1 and in Spanish at http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=967&NewsType=3&Language=2

Ms. Obaid’s World Health Day statement on safe motherhood is available in English http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=951&NewsType=3&Language=1 

Spanish http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=951&NewsType=3&Language=2.