The United Nations (UN) has warned that recent cuts to global health aid could reverse progress in reducing maternal deaths.
In a report released to mark World Health Day recently, the UN revealed that maternal deaths dropped by 40 per cent globally between 2000 and 2023, thanks to improved access to essential health services.
However, progress has slowed sharply since 2016, and an estimated 260,000 women still died from pregnancy-related causes in 2023 — about one every two minutes.
“While this report shows glimmers of hope, the data also highlights how dangerous pregnancy still is in much of the world today despite the fact that solutions exist to prevent and treat the complications that cause the vast majority of maternal deaths,” said the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus.
Ghebreyesus added, “In addition to ensuring access to quality maternity care, it will be critical to strengthen the underlying health and reproductive rights of women and girls – factors that underpin their prospects of healthy outcomes during pregnancy and beyond.”
The report also provides the first global account of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on maternal survival.
In 2021, an estimated 40,000 more women died due to pregnancy or childbirth, increasing to 322,000 from 282,000 the previous year.
The upsurge was linked not only to direct complications caused by COVID-19 but also widespread interruptions to maternity services.
This highlights the importance of ensuring such care during pandemics and other emergencies, noting that pregnant women need reliable access to routine services and checks as well as round-the-clock urgent care.
“When a mother dies in pregnancy or childbirth, her baby’s life is also at risk. Too often, both are lost to causes we know how to prevent,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Global funding cuts to health services are putting more pregnant women at risk, especially in the most fragile settings, by limiting their access to essential care during pregnancy and the support they need when giving birth. The world must urgently invest in midwives, nurses, and community health workers to ensure every mother and baby has a chance to survive and thrive,” Russell said.
The report highlights persistent inequalities between regions and countries, as well as uneven progress.
It explained that maternal mortality stagnated in five world regions after 2015, including Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, Europe, and North America.
Sub-Saharan Africa made significant gains but still accounted for approximately 70 per cent of global maternal deaths last year, attributed to fragile health systems, poverty, and conflict.
According to the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Natalia Kanem, access to quality maternal health services “is a right, not a privilege, and we all share the urgent responsibility to build well-resourced health systems that safeguard the life of every pregnant woman and newborn.”
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell also warned that global funding cuts are putting more women at risk.
Ms Russell said that mother and baby are often lost to preventable causes.
“The world must urgently invest in midwives, nurses, and community health workers to ensure every mother and baby has a chance to survive and thrive,” she said.
According to the report, pregnant women in fragile and conflict-affected countries face the highest risks, noting that nearly two-thirds of maternal deaths now occur in such settings.
“A 15-year-old girl faces a one in 51 risk of dying from a maternal cause at some point over her lifetime compared to one in 593 in more stable countries. The highest risks are in Chad and the Central African Republic (one in 24), followed by Nigeria (one in 25), Somalia (one in 30), and Afghanistan (one in 40),” it noted.
World Health Day is marked annually on 7 April. This year’s campaign focuses on improving maternal and newborn health and survival with the theme, “Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures”.
The campaign urges governments and the health community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths and to prioritise women’s longer-term health and well-being.
The report comes as humanitarian funding cuts are having severe impacts on essential health care in many parts of the world, forcing countries to roll back vital services for maternal, newborn and child health.
These cuts have led to facility closures and loss of health workers, while also disrupting supply chains for lifesaving supplies and medicines such as treatments for haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia and malaria – all leading causes of maternal deaths.
Without urgent action, the agencies warn that pregnant women in multiple countries will face severe repercussions, particularly those in humanitarian settings where maternal deaths are already alarmingly high.
