Pregnancy and childbirth causes high mortality in Women

Every one minute a woman dies due to pregnancy or childbirth related complications in world and in every seven minutes one Indian woman dies for the same, which has yet again engrossed the attention to make a safe women healthcare in reducing maternal mortality for the world’s health. The recently observed “National Safe Motherhood Day” on April 11, campaigns for the same.

The Safe Motherhood day organised by the White Ribbon Alliance in collaboration with the Government of India marks the grave concern and hence to promote public awareness to make pregnancy and childbirth safe for all women and newborns by providing health care access to all.

According to the latest data of White Ribbon Alliance, over half a million women die every year due to maternal related complications of which 70,000 is in India. About 15% of deaths of women in the reproductive age in India are maternal deaths and 40 percent of pregnant women have some kind of birth related complications. Further more unsafe abortion leads to death of over 200 women globally everyday. However, over 90 percent of deaths are preventable with proper basic medical attention.

As maternal mortality is the single greatest health indicator of any country the health administration should take all measures meeting the basic needs of society’s poorest and most vulnerable women.

Maternal mortality ratio in India is 300 per 100,000 live births as against 40 per 100,000 live births in Sri Lanka counting almost 20 percent of the worldwide estimation. Considering the number of deaths in India, improving India’s condition can further bring huge difference in the world figure.

However to everybody’s knowledge most of the death occurred in remote rural areas. Pressing for a change, there is need of a great effort both from government and organisational basis to invest more and more in health care systems and to provide quality obstetric and emergency care that are prime cause of a great number of maternal deaths.

In a recent press release the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood has urged the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to increase investment in Women’s health and also asked world leaders to account for the tragedy of maternal mortality during the upcoming meetings of the World Economic Forum in South Africa, G8 Summit in Japan and the UN Call to Action in New York. This is also to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which aims to reduce the number of women who dies in pregnancy and childbirth by three-quarters by 2015.