Afghanistan – Maternal Mortality 2nd Highest Global – Midwives Increase
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: January 19, 2009
WUNRN
UN News Centre
Afghanistan: Maternal Health Factors
Improve,
But High Death Rate Continues – UN
Report
26
January 2009 – Afghanistan: Despite a sharp increase in the number of midwives,
health facilities, female health workers and educated girls in Afghanistan, the
strife-beset country still has the world’s second highest maternal mortality
rate, United Nations officials said today.
Early
marriage – often under the age of 15 – and lack of access to medical
intervention until complications become severe are two factors that have
hampered improvement in the situation, officials from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) said at a <AThe reality is that for every 100,000
births, 1,600 women die href=”http://www.unama-afg.org/news/_pc/_english/2009/09jan26.html“>press
conference in Kabul.
“With this
situation, it is a long road for Afghanistan to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals of reducing maternal mortality,” UNICEF Representative
Catherine Mbengue said, referring to goals to reduce global ills by 2015 known
as MDGs, as the panellists introduced this year’s report on the State of the World’s Children on
maternal and newborn health.
“The reality
is that for every 100,000 births, 1,600 women die,” WHO Representative Peter
Graaf said, adding: “Given the large average number of pregnancies for Afghan
women over their lifetimes, this figure translates into a one in eight chance
for any Afghan woman to die of pregnancy-related complications.”
Mr. Graaf
said that in order to save mothers’ lives, the UN agencies are working with the
Ministry of Public Heath and other local and international partners to increase
access to skilled birth attendants, which have increased in the country from
467 to 2,167 since 2002.
However,
4,500 skilled midwives were needed in order to cover 90 per cent of the
country’s needs, he said.
In addition,
UNFPA Representative Prasanna Gunasekera stressed that saving the lives of
mothers and newborns required more than just medical intervention. “It also
requires an environment that empowers women and respects their rights,” she
said.
Education,
in particular, was important for other health factors, being the most powerful
way to break the cycle of poverty, boost knowledge of nutrition and care and
postpone marital pregnancy to a healthier age level, she added.
Girls who
give birth before age 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than
women in their 20s, and a child born to a girl under 18 has a 60 per cent
greater chance of dying in the first year of life than one born to a 19
year-old, she said.
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