Maternal mortality is the sad alarming observation made by the United Nations (UN) in a report published on February 23, which reveals that in 2023, a pregnant woman or a woman who has just given birth dies every two minutes in the world.
Maternal mortality: an alarming finding on a global scale
Both magical and sensitive, pregnancy is not without danger and the risk of maternal death does exist. “Maternal death” means the death of a woman occurring during pregnancy or within 42 days of childbirth. for a specific cause or aggravated by the pregnancy or the care it required.
To know ! Maternal death is not accidental or fortuitous.
While it is to be welcomed that maternal mortality has been reduced by a third in 20 years, the situation remains worrying today. Who would have imagined that in 2023, a woman would die every two minutes in the world from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth? This is the alarming observation made by the UN in a report published on 23 February. Admittedly, considerable progress has been made since the 2000s, but it has stalled since 2015. And the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the current global political and economic context are not pointing in the direction of an improvement in the situation.
Some thirty countries have succeeded in lowering their maternal mortality rate between 2016 and 2020, but certain regions of the world are still affected by worrying increases (Europe, North America, Latin America, Caribbean, Venezuela, Cyprus, Greece, United). Unfortunately, it is sub-Saharan Africa that suffers the most. In 2020, it accounted for 70% of maternal mortality, with the poorest regions most affected by conflict being the most affected.
A glaring lack of access to care
These figures raise questions regarding the main causes of these maternal deaths. Multiple, they might in fact be avoided if the women concerned might access quality care:
- Severe bleeding
- High blood pressure
- Pregnancy-related infections
- Complications of unsafe abortions
- Underlying conditions that may be aggravated by pregnancy (HIV/AIDS, malaria).
But this is not the case and the lack of access to care is glaring. Whether before pregnancy, during pregnancy or following childbirthstill too many women do not benefit from the care essential to their condition. Nearly a third of them are not entitled to half of the recommended prenatal checks or do not benefit from essential postnatal care.
These figures underscore the importance of urgently addressing the needs of millions of women to access much-needed health services during pregnancy and following childbirth. But how to do in a context of global shortage of midwives? 900,000 are still missing and at this rate, that’s a million more women who will see their lives threatened by 2030! We bet that considerable efforts will be made by then to allow as many people as possible to envisage a serene pregnancy and childbirth.
Déborah L., Doctor of Pharmacy
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