Women's Health and Safe Motherhood: a United Nations Report

Abstract

Complications related to pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of mortality for women of reproductive age in many parts of the developing world. Estimates of maternal mortality issued in 1996 indicate that around 585,000 women die each year of pregnancy-related causes, 99 per cent of them in developing countries (table 1). The gap in maternal mortality ratios between more developed and less developed regions is wide: in 1990, there were more than 480 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in the less developed regions
compared with about 27 per 100,000 live births in the more developed regions. In parts of Africa, ratios can be as high as 1,000 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.