MATERNAL HEALTH

PREVENT TRAGEDY, FIGHT MATERNAL MORTALITY AROUND THE WORLD

Women are dying in alarming numbers during pregnancy and childbirth because the world is failing to help. Around the globe, hundreds of thousands of women die from complications during pregnancy or childbirth each year--that's one woman dying nearly every minute of every day--and millions more are left with life-altering disabilities. Society suffers a high price for every one of these needless deaths. When a mother dies, her children are up to 10 times more likely to die before their second birthday. Those who survive still face grim odds; they are less likely to go to school, get immunized against diseases and eat well--setting them on the course to a lifetime of poverty.

W know how to prevent more of maternal deaths from occurring; we just need the political will and resources to make it possible.

That's why it's so critical for Congress to support strong investments in the International Affairs budget, which allocates resources to help improve the lives of poor people around the world. Foreign assistance supports low-cost interventions that generate high-impact results and are critical to building a stable and secure world.

Please tell your members of Congress that you support a strong International Affairs budget. The mothers of the world are depending on you!

Source of Information: CARE Action Network


BY THE NUMBERS

Every 90 seconds a woman dies in childbirth. Ninety-nine percent of those women live in developing countries. The severity of these statistics is why the United Nations made "improving maternal health" one of the Millennium Development Goals. While the United States spends more money than any other country on health care, it ranks 39th in maternal mortality rates—worse than most comparable European countries and Canada.

—The 2008 maternal mortality ration in the U.S. was 16.6 per 100,000 births, compared to 8.2 in the U.K. and 3.9 in Italy.

—The child mortality rate in the U.S. was 6.7 per 1,000 live births, compared with 4.9 in Canada and 2.6 in Iceland (2000 to 2010).

—Out-of-hospital births dropped from 44 percent in 1940 to around 1 percent in 1969, which is still the current rate.

—An average, uncomplicated vaginal home birth costs 68 percent less than in a hospital (1999).

—In 2005, home births increased 5 percent in the U.S.

—61 percent of U.S. home births were delivered by midwives in 2005.

Source of statistics: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; The Lancet; The Guardian; Journal of Nurse-Midwifery; World Health Organization.

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9--Number of developing countries--out of 137--on track to achieve the U.N.'s millennium development goals to lower infant and maternal mortality rates by 2015.

MATERNAL MORTALITY IN ETHIOPIA—The number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in Ethiopia has decreased, reflecting a global trend. Many nations have made progress toward reducing the number of women dying from complications during pregnancy and childbirth, in part by training more midwives and increasing female education. The majority of the world's maternal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

4 million—Child deaths prevented around the world by boosting mothers' education.
(American Journal of Public Health; Canadian Medical Association Journal)