1998 'YEAR OF SAFE MOTHERHOOD'; UNFPA, FIVE OTHER INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES SEEK TO SLASH HALF MILLION ANNUAL MATERNAL DEATHS

Press Release
POP/667

1998 'YEAR OF SAFE MOTHERHOOD'; UNFPA, FIVE OTHER INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES SEEK TO SLASH HALF MILLION ANNUAL MATERNAL DEATHS

(Reissued as received.)

NEW YORK, 6 April (UNFPA) -- As nearly 600,000 women, primarily in developing countries, die from childbirth-related illnesses and injuries, a vast majority of which could be prevented with affordable measures, a consortium of United Nations and international agencies, the Safe Motherhood Inter-Agency Group (IAG), has launched a year-long awareness campaign and called on governments and people worldwide to commit to implementing those measures.

The Inter-Agency Group comprises the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the Population Council. Family Care International serves as the Group's secretariat.

Highlighting the year-long programme of activities will be a major event on World Health Day (7 April) at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., where some leaders will highlight what must be done to improve maternal health around the world. The First Lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton; the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn; the Executive Director of the UNFPA, Dr. Nafis Sadik; and heads of other agencies from the Inter-Agency Group will outline the social and economic implications of the problem and how they are addressing it.

Other participants will include government and health officials, international and non-governmental organizations, women's groups and academic institutions. The event will also include the participation of the business community, with a coalition of multinational corporations releasing a "Statement of Principles" in support of basic safe motherhood principles.

The Inter-Agency Group will issue a call to action, which will include the following:

-- International aid agencies are urged to provide overseas assistance to programmes that promote maternal care as an essential component of reproductive health services.

-- Governments of developing countries are urged to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity by developing and implementing health, nutrition and education programmes that promote the health of pregnant women and their infants.

-- Corporations around the world are urged to encourage governments and private organizations in host countries to provide funds and develop programmes that foster safe motherhood, and to support safe motherhood among their employees and customers.

-- Women, men and families everywhere are urged to demand and seek quality prenatal and obstetric care to ensure that no woman dies or suffers long-term complications from childbirth.

In preparation for the "Year of Safe Motherhood", the Inter-Agency Group and other experts held a conference in Colombo last October and approved the results of 10 years of research on safe motherhood, which showed that the following measures would drastically reduce maternal deaths:

-- Routine care before, during and after childbirth;

-- Emergency care for life-threatening obstetric complications;

-- Services to prevent and manage the complications of unsafe abortions;

-- Family planning to prevent unwanted pregnancies;

-- Health education and services for adolescents; and

-- Community education for women, their families and decision makers.

Maternal and newborn health services would cost an average of $3 per person per year in developing countries; maternal health services alone would cost as little as $2 per person, according to the Group. The measures would curb maternal deaths, nearly three fourths of which are directly related to severe bleeding (25 per cent), infection (15 per cent), unsafe abortions (13 per cent), eclampsia (12 per cent), and obstructed labour (8 per cent). Eight per cent of deaths are due to other direct causes such as ectopic pregnancy, embolism and anaesthesia-related complications, while the remaining

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20 per cent are due to indirect causes such as anaemia, malaria or heart disease.

Making motherhood safer requires more than good quality reproductive health services; women must be empowered and their human rights -- including their rights to good quality services and information during and after pregnancy and childbirth -- guaranteed, according to the Group.

"With the expanded availability of family planning information and services in many countries, more and more people can make their own choices about whether and when to have a child", said Charlotte Gardiner, Senior Technical Officer at the UNFPA Technical and Policy Division. "It's a tragedy that many women still cannot choose to have their baby in safety."

"Now is the time to act upon what has been learned over the past 10 years of research and model projects, before one more woman's life is lost needlessly", said Jill Sheffield, President of Family Care International.

"Beyond the close to 600,000 pregnancy-related deaths each year, you have another 50 million women who are injured, many of them severely and painfully, as a result of pregnancy or childbirth", said Ms. Sheffield. "Therefore, simple measures ensuring safe motherhood would also eliminate untold amounts of suffering throughout the world."

During the "Year of Safe Motherhood" and on World Health Day, several agencies and countries around the world plan to coordinate events. The public is encouraged to visit the Safe Motherhood Website -- www.safemotherhood.org -- which contains information and updates about relevant activities and links to the web pages of each Group member.

Formed in 1987, the Inter-Agency Group seeks to reduce maternal deaths and illnesses. The UNFPA has engaged in several successful partnerships to promote safe motherhood in various parts of the world. Some examples are cited below:

Africa

Successful partnerships in safe motherhood programmes have been recorded, since 1990, in Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon, Niger, Nigeria and Uganda, with the objective of reducing their high rates of maternal and prenatal mortality. The projects were executed in collaboration with governments, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations such as the Family Care International, and medical schools. In Uganda, the safe motherhood project was implemented by the National Association of Women's Organizations of Uganda, in consultation with the Ministry of Health. There was collaboration in the implementation of a project in Gabon, with the WHO (as executing agency) and some funding from UNICEF.

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Arab States

The project on support to safe motherhood and family planning was approved in 1995 for about $2.5 million over two years, to strengthen national coordination for the implementation of the national safe motherhood strategy and improve the quality and access to reproductive health services in six provinces in the Wilaya of Marrakech, Morocco. Since its inception, the project has contributed to the national safe motherhood programme through, for example, the training of midwives, nurses and doctors in safe delivery practices and through the production of leaflets on signs of anaemia during pregnancy. It has also provided medical equipment, supplies, contraceptives and vehicles to six maternity centres. While the activities related to that UNFPA-funded project were completed in December 1996, further related work continues with the agreement of the Belgian Government to contribute $548,700 to help strengthen four labour and delivery facilities and create six model reproductive health centres.

Asia and Pacific

Among the most successful partnership efforts of safe motherhood initiatives funded by the UNFPA is the project for the strengthening of maternal and child health/family planning services at the grass-roots level. Managed by UNICEF, with input from the United States-based non-governmental organization, Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health, the project operates in 300 poor counties in China. Its goal is to reduce child mortality, improve children's nutritional status and increase access to a choice of contraceptives and counselling. A 1995 assessment showed reductions of 30 to 50 per cent in child and maternal mortality rates in those counties.

Latin America and Caribbean

In Bolivia, which has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the region, the UNFPA supports a government strategy for the quick reduction of maternal mortality, with emphasis on care of obstetric emergencies. Its support includes the development and provision of training for medical, nursing and auxiliary staff, equipment and appropriate organizational systems. The national maternity insurance, created to reduce economic barriers to services, is being revised into a basic insurance, which would now include family planning. The Fund has also supported a sensitization campaign for leaders and communities in support of a National Commission for Safe Motherhood, led by Bolivia's First Lady. A national system for monitoring maternal mortality has been established to review the causes of maternal deaths.

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