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Press Release
Contact: Lynnette Johnson Williams
202.327.5003
25
September 2002
Promises To Keep: The Toll of Unintended
Pregnancies on Women's Lives in the Developing WorldA
new Global Health Council report is the first-ever global analysis
of the impact of unintended pregnancies on maternal deaths in
developing countries. The report, "Promises to Keep: The Toll of
Unintended Pregnancies on Women's Lives in the Developing World,"
details more than 300 million unintended pregnancies and the
resulting deaths of nearly 700,000 women between 1995 and 2000.
"Most of these unintended pregnancies and needless deaths
could have been prevented had basic reproductive health services
been made available to these women. Failure to provide women with
the means to plan, prevent or appropriately space their next
pregnancy poses an extraordinary public health threat, one that can
readily be addressed with modest resources," said Nils Daulaire,
President and CEO of the Global Health Council, who released the
report on Sept. 25 at a Washington briefing.
"The report
confirms the strong correlation between maternal mortality and
inadequate access to quality reproductive health. Reproductive
health is about saving lives," said Daulaire.
The Global
Health Council conducted this comprehensive analysis as a
statistical measure for assessing progress on pledges to reform and
fund reproductive health services made at the 1994 International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The study was
designed to determine whether the further extension of voluntary
reproductive health services might play a significant role in
reducing deaths of women due to complications during pregnancy and
childbirth.
According to the Council's analysis, between
1995 and 2000, the world's 1.3 billion women between the ages of 15
and 45 experienced more than 1.2 billion pregnancies. Of these, more
than 300 million - or more than one quarter - were unintended. Over
those six years, nearly 700,000 women died from unintended
pregnancies. While more than one-third died from the myriad problems
associated with pregnancy, labor and delivery, the majority - over
400,000 - died as a result of complications resulting from abortions
carried out in unsafe, unsanitary and often illegal conditions.
The deaths detailed in the report were the result of
inadequate access to effective reproductive health services,
poverty, ignorance, social and economic marginalization, and
entrenched gender bias.
"These deaths are a reflection of
the failure of the international community to live up to the ICPD
commitments made to the world's women - to assure that they will
have access to the reproductive health services that could prevent
them," Daulaire said.
The report confirms the consequences
of the growing disparity between healthcare available in
industrialized nations and in the developing world. Women in some
developing nations run several hundred times the risk of dying
during pregnancy and childbirth compared to their counterparts in
wealthier nations. In North America and Europe, one woman in 4,000
is likely to die from maternal causes. In Africa, one of every 15
women will die of these causes.
The reasons for this
continued high prevalence of maternal mortality are complex, the
result of flagging funding for essential health services, and the
low priority placed on women's reproductive health.
Maternal
mortality is highest in countries where women are least likely to
have access to modern contraceptive services and in those countries
where women do not have access to trained birth attendants or any
type of care during labor and delivery. In Burkina Faso, where only
four percent of women use family planning methods, one in 14 will
die of maternal causes over the course of her lifetime. In Brazil,
the opposite is true; nearly three-quarters of the female population
regularly use family planning services and their lifetime risk of
maternal mortality sinks to one in 130.
"We also found that
where women have little or no access to simple and reliable methods
of contraception, an unintended pregnancy often leads to the
decision to have an abortion," Daulaire noted. Deaths as a result of
unsafe abortions account for 64 percent of the nearly 700,000 women
who have died as a result of unintended pregnancies since 1995.
The analysis of national data demonstrates that in countries
where women desire to limit their family sizes and have access to
family planning services, the number of women both seeking abortions
and dying as a result of them remains relatively low.
With
funding from The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Council
compiled a country-by-country profile of all 227 countries in the
world, based on the best available statistics from the U.S. Census
Bureau, United Nations agencies, country reports, and specialized
surveys carried out by a variety of respected research
organizations. For each country and each year, data were generated
on the number of pregnancies that occurred, the number that ended in
miscarriages and abortions, and the number carried to term. For each
of these, the data sources were used to assess the number that
resulted from unintended pregnancies, and the number of unintended
pregnancies that resulted in the death of the mother.
Daulaire cited estimates by the World Health Organization
and the World Bank that $3.00 per person per year would provide
basic family planning, maternal and neonatal health care to women in
developing countries. The package would include contraception,
prenatal, delivery and post-natal care in addition to postpartum
family planning and the promotion of condoms to prevent sexually
transmitted infections.
"The simplest metric is in the
number of women's lives saved as a result of access to appropriate
health care services. What is not immediately apparent, however, is
the social and economic benefit extended to her family, her
community and society at large," Daulaire
concluded. |
Download this
Report
 Promises To Keep: The Toll of Unintended Pregnancies on Women's
Lives in the Developing World (PDF, 2.3MB)
Promises To Keep: The Toll of Unintended Pregnancies on Women's
Lives in the Developing World (Text Only PDF, 85K)
 Promises To Keep: The Toll of Unintended Pregnancies on Women's
Lives in the Developing World (MS Word, 96K)
Multimedia
Tools
These tools will help you download the Report
Download the free Adobe Reader to View PDF Documents
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
Download the free Microsoft Word Viewer
http://www.microsoft.com/office/000/viewers.asp
Related Article
Maternal Health Survey
Faults Cutbacks
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/269/nation/Maternal_health_survey_faults_cutbacks+.shtml
category: News from Other Sources : General Health
News
contributed by Andrea Welch on 25
September 2002
Global :
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