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1,600 women die daily during childbirth

ISLAMABAD: Each day, some 1,600 women die in pregnancy and childbirth Ñ a death every minute, making complications of pregnancy and delivery the leading cause of death among reproductive-age women in developing countries.

In addition to those who die, each year over 60 million women suffer acute complications from pregnancy, the United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) notes under its programme Safe Motherhood.

Nearly a third of these women Ñ most in their teens, twenties or thirties Ñ sustain debilitating lifelong injuries or infections: infertility, impaired mobility, severe anameia and chronic weakness, besides other complications.

The cumulative total of those severly affected by pregnancy Ñ related injuries is conservatively estimated at some 300 million, or more than a quarter of the developing world's adult female population.

Such is the neglect of women's health and the shame evoked by these conditions that they typically go untreated, compounding the woman's suffering, and leading to isolation and exclusion from the family and community, the Unicef notes.

The primary causes of maternal mortality and injury are haemori hage, infection, pregancy-related hypertension, obstructed labour, and pre-existing conditions such as anaemia and malaria.

Children, too, the Unicef said, die from factors that cause the death or disability of their mothers Ñ and those who survive their mothers are at greater risk of malnutrition and death.

Every yar, 1.4 million infants are still born and 1.5 million to 2.5 million infant die in the first week of life from complications related to their mothers' pregnancy or experienced during delivery. These deaths constitute two thirds of all the deaths in developing countries of children under one year of age.

A million or more children are left motherless by the nearly 600,000 women who die from pregnancy-related causes each year.

These children are 3 to 10 times more likely to die within two years than children who live with both parents.

Because the vast majority of women who die or are seriously injured by maternity related causes are in the prime of their lives, most often with children and other dependents, there are myriad other social and economic effects from their loss.

Families forego a woman's crucial role in childbearing, household management, and care for children and other family members.

Communities lose a vital member whose unpaid labour is often central to community life.

The nation loses its investment in a woman's health and education, and forfeits her contribution to the economy.

Complications related to pregnancy, childbirth and unsafe abortions; are leading causes of death in adolescent girls. APP