Every year more than half a million women die from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications – 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries.
Maternal health is one of the most glaring inequalities in the world today. The lifetime risk of an African woman dying of complications related to pregnancy or childbirth is almost 300 times greater than a woman in a wealthier country like Canada.
Reasons for maternal death are understood and most often preventable with proper health care, approximately 80% of maternal deaths are due to hemorrhaging, infection, high blood pressure and/or obstructed labour.
Teenage childbearing significantly contributes to the risk, as do unsafe abortions. Indirect medical causes such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, viral hepatitis, TB, diarrhoea, tetanus, heart disease and sickle cell disease also increase a woman’s risk of complications during pregnancy or death.
Health services are often inaccessible and women can’t afford them. Many women in developing countries receive no antenatal care during pregnancy, half give birth without a trained attendant and 70% receive no post-natal care.
Beneath the medical causes of maternal death lie other factors: poor education, low social status, lack of income and employment opportunities, and nutritional problems before, during and after pregnancy.
Maternal death or disability is not just a personal, family or community tragedy. Poor maternal health is serious threat to Africa’s economic development. If there are no interventions to reduce the current rate of maternal deaths and disabilities in Africa, over the next ten years, $45 billion worth of productivity will be lost.
AMREF is improving Maternal Health
AMREF is working directly with communities to improve maternal health. This includes:
Improving access to health services including family planning, safe obstetric care and midwives Preventing and treating malaria in pregnancy Improving mothers’ nutrition Raising awareness of personal and food hygiene, basic sanitation and improved access to clean water as essentials for good maternal health.
We are also working with communities to deal with the indirect causes of maternal ill health, including:
Increasing prevention, treatment and care of HIV/AIDS. Controlling ‘opportunistic’ infections, including TB, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Protecting women’s reproductive rights, including promoting women’s rights to make informed choices about family planning and childbirth, and protection against gender-based violence.
In South Sudan AMREF is running midwifery courses to provide desperately needed skills. After 21 years of civil war there were 20 midwives for Southern Sudan’s 10 million people.
Learn more about AMREF’s work;
- Preventing and treating new infections of HIV/AIDS
- Raising awareness about Tuberculosis
- Educating people about the causes of Malaria
- Decreasing Water-borne Diseases
