Last update: Nov 2007

The Challenge

Insufficient maternal care during pregnancy and delivery is largely responsible for the staggering annual toll of more than 500,000 maternal deaths and the estimated 4 million newborn deaths that occur within the first month of life. Indeed, roughly three quarters of all maternal deaths occur during delivery and in the immediate postpartum period.

The single most critical intervention for safe motherhood is thus to ensure that women receive care during delivery by skilled health personnel - a doctor, nurse or midwife - with the necessary skills to handle normal deliveries safely, to recognize the onset of complications beyond their capacity and to refer the mother for emergency care as needed. Traditional birth attendants, whether trained or untrained, can neither predict nor cope with serious complications.

Maternal care rates tend to be low, and maternal mortality rates high, in countries where women have low status, and also in areas with poor access to routine health services in general. Vast disparities persist in maternal health coverage between the industrialized and developing countries; rich and poor; urban and rural; educated and uneducated.

All women should have access to basic maternity care, through a continuum of services offering quality antenatal care, clean and safe delivery, and postpartum care for mother and infant, with a functioning referral system linking the whole.