Maternal Deaths Decline

For all of us who care deeply about the rights and well-being of girls and women across the world, it is rare to wake up to good news on the front page of a major newspaper. But on April 13th, this remarkable headline appeared on the cover of the New York Times: “Maternal Deaths Decline Sharply Across the Globe.” So accustomed are we to hearing about the persistent lack of progress in reducing maternal mortality globally, I’m sure that many of us did a double take.And then devoured the article. It describes the new findings, published in the highly regarded scientific journal The Lancet, as “challenging the prevailing view of maternal mortality as an intractable problem that has defied every effort to solve it”, and demonstrating that “money allocated to women’s health is actually accomplishing something.” This is very good news, indeed.

Those of us in the One By One community should be especially heartened by the fact that one of our critical investment areas – increasing the availability of trained birth attendants – is identified as being of one of the key factors responsible for the decline in maternal deaths. We have chosen to support training of birth attendants because we know that they play a vital role in both ensuring that uncomplicated deliveries are clean and safe, and in identifying and supporting women who need to be transferred to a facility that can provide emergency obstetric care that will prevent fistula and save lives.It is great to see the importance of this work being highlighted in this high profile article.

While this long-awaited decline in maternal mortality demonstrates that important progress is being made, there are still hundreds of thousands of girls and women dying each year due to preventable pregnancy-related causes, and vast numbers of others develop devastating childbirth injuries such as fistula. There remains an urgent need to work towards ensuring that all girls and women have access to basic and emergency care during pregnancy and delivery. As Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet so aptly concludes, “ This is a moment to celebrate – and accelerate.” Thank you for supporting our acceleration to end fistula.