Making sure women throughout the world can give birth in a health facility, in the presence of a midwife, is the best strategy for substantially reducing maternal mortality worldwide, according to a landmark series of papers published by the Lancet on Thursday 28th September 2006.
The series authors called on governments and donors to prioritise their strategy and warned that without political commitment and investment into this approach, substantial declines in maternal deaths are unlikely in the next 10-20 years, and the fifth Millennium Development Goal – to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015 - will not be met.
The series can be downloaded for free from the Lancet website.
