Every two minutes, a woman in the world dies during pregnancy or childbirth
“While pregnancy should be a time of immense hope and a positive experience for all women, it tragically remains a terribly dangerous experience for millions of people around the world who do not have access to high quality health care. quality and respectful."
Every day in 2020, around 800 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. This means that a woman still dies in the world every two minutes from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, although maternal mortality has been reduced by a third in 20 years.
This is the alert launched today by the UN. The United Nations Interagency Group for Maternal Mortality Estimation, which includes the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, has just published a report on trends in maternal mortality from 2000 to 2020.
Doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General recalls "the urgent need to ensure that every woman and girl has access to essential health services before, during and after childbirth, and that they can fully exercise their reproductive rights".
“While pregnancy should be a time of immense hope and a positive experience for all women, it tragically remains a terribly dangerous experience for millions of people around the world who do not have access to high quality health care. quality and respectful."
Worldwide, in 2020, 287 women died during pregnancy or childbirth. They were 000 in 309 and 000 in 2016. These deaths are largely concentrated in the poorest regions of the world and in countries affected by conflict.
Progress in reducing the number of these deaths was made between 2000 and 2015, but gains largely stagnated, with the situation even reversing in some cases after this period.
While Belarus recorded the largest decline, Venezuela recorded the largest increase, followed by Cyprus, Greece and the United States. Two regions saw significant declines, of 35% and 16% respectively: Australia and New Zealand, and Central and South Asia. In 2020, about 70% of all these deaths were recorded in sub-Saharan Africa, where the maternal mortality rate is "136 times higher than in Australia and New Zealand" which record the lowest figures, said the author of the report, Dr. Jenny Cresswell, at a press conference.
The leading causes of these deaths are severe bleeding, high blood pressure, pregnancy-related infections, complications from unsafe abortions, and underlying conditions that may be aggravated by pregnancy (such as HIV/AIDS and malaria), all of which are preventable and treatable complications, according to the WHO.
MC (with AFP)
