Maternal Mortality Rates

Gains made, but many pregnant mothers still die, By Binaj Gurubacharya (AP), September 17, 2010, Washington Post: “Astamaya Tami, 55, is part of a ragtag army of women who have turned Nepal into an against-all-odds success story when it comes to saving lives of expectant mothers, hundreds of thousands of whom die unnecessarily every year across the globe. She and others pull on their flip-flops and head into the mountains by car or on foot to visit desperately poor villages, some connected only by a single, rocky footpath. They bring vaccines, vitamins and, equally important, advice. ‘At first people were suspicious. They’d scold us, or wouldn’t talk to us at all,’ said Tami, herself a mother of eight, adding that not long ago almost all women were giving birth at home or in filthy, frigid cowsheds. They were helped only by female relatives or untrained midwives cutting umbilical cords with unsterilized knives. ‘But that’s all changed,’ said Tami, smiling proudly and dressed in a red ceremonial sari. Like many developing countries today – especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – this Himalayan nation of 28 million people, plagued by political instability following a decade-long communist insurgency, still faces massive challenges. But it is seen by many as an example of just how much can be achieved through sheer will when it comes to fighting maternal mortality: In the last five years, it has slashed rates in half. That is something 189 heads of state and development agencies well understood a decade ago when they set their Millennium Development Goals of tackling the world’s most serious humanitarian crises in the areas of poverty, disease and lack of education…”