The term “development” in common usage usually refers to global wellbeing and advancement; more often than not, we think about political stability, peace, economic progress, well-organized market system and technological innovation. At first thought, we don’t necessarily view an issue like maternal mortality as a yard stick for measuring our collective wellbeing. We forget that whatever affects one affects all! Moreover, many of the women who lose their lives while giving birth cannot tell their story.

Some might not understand it clearly when I say that maternal mortality and other related issues pertaining to women and children are of crucial benefit to development. But they certainly can’t ignore the weighty words of Mahmoud Fathalla, founder of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, in his recent speech to the attendees of the Global Maternal Health Conference in Tanzania. (This was an event co-sponsored by Harvard School of Public Health’s Maternal Health Task Force and Management, and another non-profit organisation in Tanzania by the name, Development for Health (MDH).) He stated at that “Throughout history, more women have died in childbirth than men have died in battle.”

Mahmoud Fathalla’s claim is given some credence by Carol Bellamy, Former UNICEF Executive Director, when he said on the eve of women’s day in 2003 that “some 1400 girls and women die each day from causes related to childbirth, 99 per cent of them in developing countries…the same number died yesterday, and the same number will die tomorrow – most of them in silence.” According to those figures, it implies that in 2003 alone, over half a million women lost their lives in the process of childbirth.

However, the World Health Organization has released data that maternal mortality has drastically dropped by 50 per cent worldwide between 1990 and 2010.  Even so, 800 women died in childbirth every day in 2012, with 99 per cent of them from developing countries. That aside, for every woman in developing countries who dies from complications related to childbirth, about 30 more suffer injuries, infections, and disabilities which are usually untreated and unspoken of, according to UNICEF.

Going by this figure, UNICEF stated that “an estimated 300 million women today – or a quarter of the women in the developing world – have sustained problems in pregnancy and childbirth that have profoundly affected their lives.”

So how does the continent of Africa intend to achieve development when a huge number of African women die during pregnancy and childbirth? Especially when all that is needed is to ensure that issues concerning women and children are given high national priority? This tragedy by itself will hinder and undermine any progress towards development that Africa might attain, for the simple reason that women play an important role in society. And they cannot be replaced—they are the care givers.  When a woman is missing in a family, it has numerous ripple effects. This is further compounded by the large number of women that we lose on a daily basis as a result of complications during and following pregnancy and childbirth.

We cannot reverse time and undo the death of those we have lost, but we can speak for them and for the other living women around the world, especially in Africa. We cannot afford to fail these women, we just cannot! As Carol Bellamy put it, “If we fail them, we fail their children, we fail their communities, and we fail the very idea of human progress.”

African leaders can take its cue from western nations, who have drastically reduced maternal mortality to a large extent. Their success shows that natal death is avoidable.

A sound health care system still remains the foundation for battling this malady, especially in rural communities where poor women have no health care facility. WHO’s report says that “only 46% of women in low-income countries benefit from skilled care during childbirth,” leaving others to local midwives who are not able to handle complications when they arise. With quality health care system in rural communities, poor women can visit well-trained medical professionals for antenatal care and postnatal medical advice and check-ups.

However, UNICEF argues that the extensive provision of emergency obstetric care is the single most effective way to reduce maternal mortality.

Source: This article was first published on www.carmma.org