Number of Maternal Deaths Has Significantly Gone Low Since 1990

In 1990 about 532,000 deaths are connected to pregnancy and childbirth up to six weeks after birth. This month the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that a quarter of a century later, the statistics or mortality rate for women in stages of pregnancy has gone down up to 44 percent. With a month left in this year, the 2015 report released by WHO estimated around 303,000. This is the last in the report for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The WHO's Assistant Director General for Family, Women's and Children's Health, Dr. Flavia Bustreo said, "The MDGs triggered unprecedented efforts to reduce maternal mortality. "Over the past 25 years, a woman's risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes has nearly halved. That's real progress, although it is not enough. We know that we can virtually end these deaths by 2030 and this is what we are committing to work towards."

If compared, the maternal mortality ratio in 1990, which was 385 maternal deaths in every 100,000, the numbers have gone down to 216 now. The countries with the highest maternal mortality rates in 1990, such as Maldives, Bhutan, Timor Leste, Mongolia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Rwanda and Cabo Verde, have also improved and was commended in the event. As some countries such as Afghanistan, Ecuador and Dominican Republic have been making progress, Eastern Asia has been recognized with the biggest decline with as much as 72 percent and with the Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa as still having the biggest mortality rates.

The information has been reported by the World Health Organization, the World Bank Group, UNICEF, United Nations Population Fund and the U.N. Population Division. It was being published in "The Lancet," a medical journal. The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched in September 2015 the new  Global Strategy for Women's, Children's and Adolescent's Health, aiming to hit an ambitious goal of further improving the quality and reducing maternal deaths to as low as 70 in every 100,000 globally, which is part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).