A woman dies every two minutes worldwide from problems during pregnancy or childbirth.
The WHO stresses that cuts in health cooperation, led by the United States, could increase this figure.
BarcelonaDeaths among women during pregnancy or childbirth have fallen by 40% over the past century, but the numbers are still staggering. In 2023, 260,000 women lost their lives worldwide during pregnancy, childbirth, or the immediate postpartum period. That's one maternal death every two minutes on average, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which fears the numbers will rise again due to cuts in international health cooperation being made by various countries, led this year by the United States.
The study, published to coincide with World Health Day, highlights the enormous inequality between countries. Seventy percent of recorded maternal deaths, or 182,000, occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and 17% (43,000) in South Asia, developing areas that often lack adequate health systems, the organization emphasizes.
The largest decline in the maternal mortality rate between 2000 and 2023 occurred in Eastern Europe and South Asia. In these areas, deaths due to problems during pregnancy or childbirth have fallen by over 70% over this period.
In the most developed countries, the maternal mortality rate is 10 deaths per 100,000 births, while in less developed countries it is 346 deaths per 100,000 births, a rate 30 times higher.
Mortality is, in fact, directly linked to a country's wealth and per capita income: the chance of a woman dying during pregnancy or childbirth is 120 times higher in countries with lower incomes than in those with higher incomes.
While the physiological mortality rate remains high, data reveal that the situation becomes more complicated in states experiencing conflict: the risk of dying increases to 1 woman for every 51 births. At the top of this ranking, the countries with the highest rates are Chad, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
Most common causes
According to the WHO, 75% of maternal deaths are due to a fairly small number of causes: hemorrhages and infections during childbirth, preeclampsia and eclampsia (which are caused by an increase in blood pressure during labor), complications during childbirth, or abortions performed in unsafe conditions.
The organization points out that to reduce these "unacceptably high" figures, all women, including adolescents, must have access to contraception, safe abortion practices guaranteed by law, and quality postpartum care.
The fact is that although the data indicate progress, the WHO warns that the downward trend in maternal mortality has slowed since 2016 and that the current annual rate of decline (1.5%) is insufficient to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in this area, which would only be achieved at a faster pace.