Essay On Maternal Mortality

Saving the millions of women, newborns, and children who die each year from preventable causes presents a formidable challenge (Sines et al. 2006) . Sines and friends also mentioned that about 530,000 women die from pregnancy related complications and about 4 million babies die within the first month of life. More than 10 million children under the age of 5 die each year (Robert Black et al. 2003) . There is a big gap between developed and developing countries in respect of maternal and child mortality rate. This is due to the fact that every woman in developed countries has the access to special care during pregnancy and childbirth; however, in many developing countries many women never get access to health facilities. In this context, many policies and programmes have been initiated and interventions such as safe motherhood and child survival programme have been introduced in many developing countries. On the other hand, the necessary services are neither sophisticated nor very expensive, and reducing maternal mortality is one of the most cost-effective strategies available in the area of public health (Message from the Director-General, World Health

The use of maternal and child health services, such as prenatal care and professionally assisted delivery, improves the health and well-being of women and children (Short and Zhang 2004). In a study of 240 maternal deaths in Mexico, Bobadilla et al. (1991) found that inadequate medical and institutional care contributed to 70 percent of the deaths, whereas only 22 percent of deaths could be attributed to behavior patterns of women and their families. Grossman (1990) claimed that “health services themselves often are ‘the problem’ when they are inappropriate, poorly delivered, inaccessible or insensitive to the cultural imperatives of time and