Press Features

Maternal and Child Mortality: Problems and Solutions

The Problem

Comprehensive health care for all is simply not available in most of the Latin American and Caribbean Region. Many women are uneducated about simple health, hygiene and nutrition practices for themselves and their families. They lack access to modern contraceptive methods like condoms and injections. Pregnancy-related complications are among the leading causes of death and disability for women aged 15-49 in developing countries. Yet most of these complications could be easily avoided or treated. Despite all our current efforts, the gap between what can be done to reduce child and maternal mortality and what is actually being done is growing (Child Survival issue, Lancet 2003).

Many effective and inexpensive preventive and treatment interventions exist that can help reduce deaths among children under 5. These include breastfeeding, oral rehydration therapy and immunization (The Lancet).

Where health care is available, it is not always of the highest quality. In the 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries where a majority of deliveries are performed in health centers and hospitals, death rates are still too high. In rural and poor areas, most families don't get any kind of skilled health care before, during or after the birth of their children. Even though we know what to do, we aren't making enough progress to solve the problem. Far too many children and mothers continue to die.

The Solution

World Health Day 2005 has three global objectives:

• Raising awareness of maternal and child death.
• Increasing understanding that solutions exist.
• Generating a movement toward collective responsibility and action.

World Health Day, April 7, 2005, focuses on the health of mothers and children. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) urges governments, private groups, non-government organizations, communities, and individuals to see this date as an opportunity-to recognize that every woman has the right to a safe pregnancy and childbirth, and that children have the right to live healthy lives, to commit to immediate action. Together, we need to raise public awareness, get people and groups in our communities involved, and educate everyone about how and when to access health care. We need to strengthen political and technical leadership and to commit financial resources. We need focused efforts to recruit, train and strategically place enough skilled health care providers where they're needed.

Decreasing child mortality rates by two-thirds and reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters are two of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

More than 189 nations have acknowledged the importance of healthy mothers and children for social and economic development, committing themselves to the UN Millennium Declaration and its targets, the Millennium Development Goals. At the current pace, countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region will not fully achieve these goals. We must have rapid and coordinated action so every mother and child will benefit from essential, and affordable, health care.

Millions of lives could be saved using the knowledge we have today. The challenge is to transform existing knowledge into action.