India Tops Global Maternal Death Rate in 2010: UN

Photo © UNFPA/Sawiche Wamunza

UNITED NATIONS (NNN-Bernama): India and Nigeria together accounted for a third of global maternal deaths in 2010, the latest UN figures show.

India accounted for 19 per cent (56,000) and Nigeria 14 per cent (40,000) of the world's maternal deaths, according to a report on trends in maternal mortality between 1990 to 2010, Press Trust of India reported.                                       

Globally, an estimated 287,000 women died in pregnancy and childbirth in 2010, a decline of 47 per cent from 1990, with Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia accounting for 85 per cent of the those maternal deaths, the report said.

The global Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in 2010 was 210 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, down from 400 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990.

Another eight countries -- Democratic Republic of the Congo (15,000), Pakistan (12,000), Sudan (10,000), Indonesia (9,600), Ethiopia (9,000), Tanzania (8,500), Bangladesh (7,200) and Afghanistan (6,400) -- account for the nearly 40 per cent of the global maternal deaths.

The report said every two minutes a woman dies of pregnancy-related complications such as severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, high blood pressure during pregnancy and unsafe abortion.

However there has been some progress in providing improved healthcare to pregnant women which has resulted in the deaths being cut by half over the past two decades, the report added. -NNN-BERNAMA