About Maternal Mortality
Maternal mortality is one of the most discrepant public health indicators between developed and developing countries.
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Starrs A. The Safe Motherhood Action Agenda: Priorities for the Next Decade. Report on the Safe Motherhood |
Worldwide, over half a million women die each year of largely preventable maternal causes.
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UNFPA (2000) The state of the world population 2000: Lives together, worlds apart. New York: UNFPA |
The disproportionate burden of excess maternal mortality in developing countries is recognised as a major international problem and is included as Millennium Development Goal 5, which will be judged based on success in reducing maternal mortality by 2015.
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MDG 5: to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015 |
While considerable advances have been made in increasing international commitment to reducing maternal mortality, the challenges associated with measuring it in low-resource settings remain a barrier to progress. There is currently an unprecedented need for estimating maternal mortality in developing countries.
Since the launch of the Safe Motherhood Initiative in 1987, new and enhanced approaches for measuring maternal mortality have been developed, tested and used. This site shares these.