Data

I wanted to share a little bit from the UNFPA website. For those not familiar with the United Nations Population Fund, this is their mission statement:

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

I wanted to share a little bit of background info on some of the problems of getting women proper care during childbirth. I found some of these statistics to be quite shocking. Again, from the UNFPA site.

The limitations of screening to identify risks

Some women may clearly be at risk for complications, such as those with obvious physical malformations or very short stature, those that are too young and immature, or those having severe health conditions. It is indeed essential to refer them to an institution before the start of the labour, in order to anticipate and manage obstetric complications. But the great majority of complications arise with little or no warning among women who have no risk factors. Every minute, 110 women in the world experience a complication in their pregnancy, and one of them will die.

Since it is difficult to predict who will develop a life-threatening complication, all pregnant women should have access to a qualified health provider for prenatal and delivery care, operating in a health centre with adequate referral services to a higher level of facility if needed.

Impoverished and rural women get less care

Over the last 15 years, all regions have shown improvement in the proportion of assisted births, from 43 per cent for the developing world as a whole in 1990 to about 58 per cent. Eastern and South-East Asia and Northern Africa have made the most headway. In sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly half of the world's maternal deaths occur, only 46 per cent of deliveries are assisted by skilled attendants. In Southern Asia, the proportion is even lower.

Enormous disparities remain within countries: Impoverished and rural women are far less likely than their urban or wealthier counterparts to receive skilled care during childbirth. In rural areas health clinics and hospitals are often spread out over vast distances and transportation systems are often rudimentary. That is one of the reasons why UNFPA supports increasing the number of community-based midwives, and strengthening district-level health systems to provide backup support.

Some of the data I've seen in the area of Zambia we are working with is quite shocking. A Zambian Demographic Health Survey in 2001-2002 showed that nationally only 43.4% of women had their last delivery with a skilled provider. In the Central Province (where we are working) only 34.2% had. That means that over 65% of women are delivering their babies away from a skilled attendant! That would explain one reason why the maternal and infant mortality rate is so high.