Maternal Mortality and the ICPD

The problem

"…about half a million women die each year of pregnancy-related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries." ICPD, Para 8.19

The promise

"Countries should strive to effect significant reductions in maternal mortality by the year 2015: a reduction in maternal mortality by one half of the 1990 levels by the year 2000 and a further one half by 2015.” ICPD Para 8.21 The Millennium Development Goals share the target of a three quarters reduction in maternal mortality from 2000 to 2015.

UNFPA’s strategic approach

UNFPA's three-pronged strategy for reducing maternal mortality includes:

• family planning so that every pregnancy is welcome
• every woman should be skillfully assisted during childbirth
• appropriate, timely emergency obstetric care should be available to all women who develop complications.

How are we doing?

ICPD’s call for reducing maternal mortality by half by 2000 did not occur for many reasons, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Maternal mortality is hard to accurately measure, but the best global estimates show the rates have remained relatively stable worldwide (529,000 deaths in 2000). In the last decade, rapid progress has been observed in some countries, such as Botswana, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica and Thailand, as more women are attended by professionals during childbirth and have access to facilities that offer emergency obstetric care. In previous decades, some countries including China, Malaysia, Tunisia and Sri Lanka succeeded in lowering maternal deaths by providing women access to education and health services as well as wider social and economic opportunities.
Pilot programmes for extending emergency obstetric care to all pregnant women who experience complications are also showing results. But significant additional resources and concerted efforts are urgently needed to reach the ICPD goal by 2015. Such efforts would also go a long way to reduce the high incidence of disability, including fistula that result from the lack of emergency obstetric care when complications develop.