| ■ 500,000 Women Die Each Year During Pregnancy, Childbirth | 2007.10.15 |
| Each year, more than half a million women worldwide die during pregnancy and childbirth and that death toll is decreasing too slowly to meet a target set by the United Nations, warns a report released Friday by a number of groups including the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The document noted that 99 percent of those deaths occur in developing countries, Agence France-Presse reported. In 2005, 536,000 women died of maternal causes, compared to 576,000 deaths in 1990. The rate of decline is far less than the target set out in the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which calls for a 5.5 percent decrease in maternal deaths per year until 2015. The decline in 2005 was less than one percent. In 2005, the maternal death rate in developing nations was 450 per 100,000 live births, compared to nine per 100,000 in developed countries, said the report. It said more needs to be done to improve women's healthcare and access to reproductive health services in developing regions, AFP reported. |