Improving Maternal & Newborn Health in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa
Of all mortality rates, maternal mortality is the most unequal between industrialised and developing countries. Every day, an average of 1,500 women die from complications related to pregnancy and child birth. The majority of these women are in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where WCF has chosen to focus its programmes.
Every year, almost 4 million newborn babies die within the first 28 days of life. Around 60-80 percent of these can be attributed to low birth weight and the majority of these cases occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where there are the high rates of undernutrition amongst girls and women.
The map below compares the maternal and neonatal mortality in the countries where WCF works. It shows that in contrast to the UK where 3 newborns in 1000 births may die, 40 are likely to die in India. In Malawi, for every 100 pregnant women, at least one of those women is likely to die as a consequence of her pregnancy.
Research has shown that around 80 percent of maternal deaths can be averted if women have access to essential maternity and basic health-care services. Equitable access to health care is the ultimate aim of every country, however in remote areas of Africa and South Asia, thousands of women and babies will die before this is achieved. Building health system infrastructures and staffing health centres in rural areas is particularly difficult. Remote communities will never be able to access much needed routine healthcare without the introduction of community based interventions.
WCF and its partners focus upon mobilising communities in Bangladesh, India and Malawi to reduce maternal and newborn mortality rates through the introduction of cost-effective and scalable community based interventions.
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