Category: Maternal mortality
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A call for consensus and cooperation to resolve differing estimates of abortion-related deaths
This article, in press, is about the difference between estimates of maternal deaths from unsafe abortion from the World Health Organization and those from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), USA, both published in 2014 in two different Lancet journals. The article, co-authored by Iqbal Shah, Carla AbouZahr and me, is in the International Journal of Gynecology &…
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The Brazilian government pays compensation for a maternal death taken up by CEDAW – a decision that has global implications
Lisa Hallgarten, RHM The Brazilian government has agreed to pay compensation for the death of a pregnant woman in 2002. The decision could have implications for governments around the world where women are dying from preventable deaths in pregnancy, childbirth and abortion. The Brazilian government’s move follows landmark decisions by the Committee on the Elimination…
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The morning after: the beginnings of an assessment of the FP Summit
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters 13 July 2012 From a communications point of view, the FP Summit was a raving success. Newspapers, TV and radio all over the world covered it. Around the globe everyone reached by the media heard how wonderful family planning is and how neglected it has been, the Lancet launched…
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Making change happen is in the air
Marge Berer Editor, Reproductive Health Matters Below, are excerpts from my editorial in RHM 20(39) May 2012. This issue is about reducing maternal mortality, but the more I reflected on it the more I realised it had implications for this week’s summit on family planning. Making change happen is in the air, from the UN…
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Botched Motherhood – A Poem
A poem by Tiro Sebina – featured in Reproductive Health Matters May 2012 You may not want to hear About a woman who died In labour in a hut You may not want to hear About an expectant woman Who perished aboard A donkey cart On a bumpy road to an apology Of a health post With…
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Trends in maternal mortality 1990-2010: latest data
by Marge Berer Editor Reproductive Health Matters Thanks to the Millennium Development Goals and much work on the part of the UN, WHO, many governments and NGOs globally and nationally, the press and media are now highly attuned to what is happening as regards maternal mortality. An announcement by WHO on behalf of the United…
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Limitations of global estimates of maternal mortality – Nepal
The latest United Nations publication on global estimates of maternal mortality was released in May this year. Some of the news from this report is good, that despite big regional variations, overall maternal mortality is reducing at a global level. One limitation of the estimates is that they fail to shine a light on the…
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Maternal health: hospital delivery does not guarantee good care
Hospital delivery does not guarantee good care: recent cases of women who died in a referral hospital in a sub-Saharan African country Published on the British Medical Journal Guest Blog, 17 May 2012 A key focus of work in the field of safe motherhood has been on increasing deliveries in medical facilities with access to…
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‘The death of a woman due to pregnancy complications is not only a biological fact; it is also a political choice.’1
In 2008 UK spending on Mother’s Day gifts may have amounted to as much as UK£1.6bn, while last year it was estimated that consumers in the United States would spend as much as US$16bn. This contrasts sharply with spending on basic life-saving care for mothers in much of the global south – with some countries…