WUNRN
Argentina - Avoidable Maternal
Deaths on the Rise
By Marcela Valente
|
BUENOS
AIRES, Jun 6, 2011 (IPS) - Argentina is moving backwards in terms of maternal
mortality, with a rate three times higher than those of its neighbours Chile
and Uruguay. Maternal deaths, which are actually increasing, are often the
result of unsafe abortions, in a country where the practice is illegal.
These are the
conclusions of social organisations that monitor the official statistics on
deaths of healthy young women from pregnancy-related causes.
Complications
related to pregnancy and childbirth are the main cause of death among young
women, and many of these deaths are the result of abortion, which is only legal
in this country in specific circumstances, such as rape.
According to
the latest Health Ministry statistics, from 2009, the maternal mortality rate
that year was 55 per 100,000 live births, higher than the 2008 figure of 44 per
100,000 live births. The ministry attributed the rise to the H1N1 flu epidemic.
Under the
United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000, one of
which is to reduce maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015, from 1990 levels,
Argentina's target is 13 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births by 2015.
As part of
MDG 5, on maternal health,
The
Foundation for Studies and Research on Women (FEIM) warned that there is also
"a high level of underreporting" of maternal deaths, a large
proportion of which she said are "preventable or avoidable."
FEIM
director Dr. Mabel Bianco told IPS that although
In
neighbouring countries like
Latin
America has a disproportionately high average rate of maternal deaths: 130 per
100,000 live births according to 2007 figures provided by the United Nations,
which warns that of all the MDGs, this region is lagging farthest behind on the
maternal health targets.
Argentina's
sexual and reproductive health programme, which began to be implemented in
2003, provides for free family planning advice and contraception at public
health facilities.
But the plan
has many shortcomings. "Ignorance weighs more than ideology in many health
services, and there are no good training programmes for health
professionals," said Bianco.
Women,
especially poor women, continue to run into doctors who deny them certain birth
control methods because they consider them "abortifacients," or make
it difficult for them to acquire contraception. For example, they require young
women who ask for condoms to come with an adult, even though adolescents over
14 years of age have the right to access these services without being
accompanied by an adult.
"In
some health centres, they ask you for your identity document to give you
condoms," Bianco complained. She added that in other centres, where the
health care professionals fully support the sexual and reproductive health programme,
there is a shortage of materials.
For
instance, birth control is not always delivered in the quantities required, or
there are not enough pamphlets and posters needed to raise awareness among
women that even if they are not pregnant they can come in for free sexual
health and family planning services.
Another
major problem, said Bianco, is that abortions are still illegal, and many of
them are thus performed in unsafe conditions. An estimated 500,000 abortions a
year are practiced in this country of 40 million people, and among poor women
the risk of death from complications is especially high.
She also
criticised the fact that it is nearly impossible to obtain a legal abortion
even in the limited circumstances under which it is permitted by an archaic
law, due to the lack of a protocol for dealing with such cases in public
hospitals.
Under the
law, which dates back to 1922, abortion is only legal in cases of rape or risk
to the mother's life or health, or for women with mental disabilities, described
by the law as "idiots" or "demented".
However,
many doctors refuse to perform abortions under any circumstances. Although the
Health Ministry has drawn up a protocol for health professionals to follow in
treating patients in such situations, it has been stalled in the ministry for
three years, awaiting the minister's signature.
A movement
of 250 organisations carrying out the National Campaign for the Right to Safe,
Legal and Free Abortion is behind a draft law that has gained increasingly wide
support.
The bill was
first introduced in 2007 by 22 legislators, but died in Congress. The campaign
presented it again in 2010, and it now has the backing of 50 lawmakers prepared
to sponsor it.
The draft
law would make first-trimester abortion legal on demand, and would make free
abortions available in public health centres. It would also extend the time
frame for legal abortion in cases of rape, risk to the mother's health, or
severe fetal malformations.
Psychoanalyst
Marta Rosenberg, one of the driving forces behind the campaign, told IPS that
above and beyond the H1N1 flu epidemic, the number of deaths from abortion
complications continues to rise in absolute terms in the official statistics.
But she said
that over the next few years the number could stabilise, due to increasingly
widespread use of misoprostol or RU486, also known as "medical
abortion" - an easily accessible drug that provides a cheaper, lower risk
alternative to surgical termination of pregnancy.
Rosenberg
said it was difficult to predict whether or not the law legalising abortion
would pass this year, as the campaign hopes. "What we want is for it to be
debated, and in that sense we have managed to put the issue on the political
agenda," she said.