Safe Motherhood Essay

Health of its citizens is considered to be the utmost concern of every nation in the world. If a nation has its healthy human capital then it will automatically lead to the development of the nation in every aspect. Physically and mentally healthy human capital is an asset for a nation. Women form half of the world population. The health of the women is a matter of great importance especially health during pregnancy because at that time it is the healthy woman who will give birth to a healthy baby. So the Concept of 'Maternal Health' or 'Safe Motherhood' came into existence.

According to WHO, Maternal Health refers to the “Health of women during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period.”

Why there is a need for Maternal Health?

“No matter where a woman lives, giving

Safe Motherhood Initiative (1987)

In 1987, the “Safe Motherhood” Conference was held in Nairobi, Kenya. Here to address the problem of neglect of maternal health and to make people aware of it the organisations like WHO, the World Bank, and UNFPA came forward and made an effort to bring together the government officials, NGO representatives, health providers, and donor representatives so as to urge their collective action to prevent women from dying during pregnancy and childbirth. In this conference, the following strategies came into existence:

• Strengthening community-based health care by improving the skills of community health workers and traditional birth attendants, and screening high-risk pregnant women for referral for emergency medical care;

• Improving referral-level facilities to treat complicated cases and serve as a back-up to community-level care;

• Developing an alarm and transport system to serve as a link between community and referral