UNFPA report: Trends in Maternal Mortality:1990-2010

[Gormy Cuss]

The good news in that the decline is pretty extraordinary during that period. The authors aren't sure which of these factors contributed to it but think all may play a role: advancing in health systems, better education, and access to health care.

Globally, the total number of maternal deaths decreased by from 543 000 in 1990 to 287 000 in 2010. Likewise, the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) declined from 400 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births in 1990 to 210 in 2010, representing an average annual decline of 3.1 per cent.

All developing regions experienced a decline in MMR between 1990 and 2010, with the highest reduction in the 20-year period in Eastern Asia (69 per cent) followed by Northern Africa (66 per cent), Southern Asia (64 per cent), Sub-Saharan Africa (41 per cent), Latin America and the Caribbean (41 per cent), Oceania (38 per cent) and finally Caucasus and Central Asia (35 per cent). Although the latter region experienced the lowest decline, its already low MMR of 71 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births in 1990 made it more challenging to achieve the same decline as another region with a higher 1990 MMR value.

http://www.unfpa.org/public/home/publications/pid/10728

[sinkingfeeling]

1. It will start going back up once the GOP takes power again; cutting aid to

women's health care and contraception around the globe.