President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama’s visit to Africa this weekend “will send a powerful message to the world about their commitment to ensuring Africa’s continued progress,” Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) writes in an opinion piece in com/op-eds/improving-maternal-health–in-developing-countries-2009-07-07.html” target=_new>The Hill. She continues that “for Africa to make this long-forestalled progress, a renewed promise must be made to provide highly cost-effective solutions to ensure that women are healthy before, during and after pregnancy.”

According to Moore, “More than 500,000 women worldwide die from pregnancy each year, and millions more endure life-threatening complications.” For example, in Ghana, women’s risk of pregnancy-related death is one in 45, compared with one in 4,800 in the U.S., she writes. “In some of the world’s poorest countries, including Afghanistan, the maternal death risk is as high as one in eight,” Moore adds. Access to health care is a significant part of the problem, she writes, noting that “[o]nly 40% of births worldwide take place in a health facility” and that “[s]ix of the seven countries with the highest levels of maternal mortality have less than one doctor per every 10,000 people.”

Moore continues that she is “encouraged” that the House Appropriations Committee recently approved increased funding for family planning and maternal and child health as part of the fiscal year 2010 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill (HR 3081). “However, more remains to be done by the United States and our partners around the world if we are truly going to fulfill the promise of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, one of which is to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters and achieve universal access to reproductive health,” she adds. Although there has been progress in fighting HIV/AIDS and working toward other Millennium Development Goals, “[w]e must recognize the appalling lack of progress that has been made in the area of maternal mortality, child mortality and family planning as major barriers to progress on all of the other goals,” according to Moore.

“Pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood should not be a death sentence,” Moore writes. She concludes, “Improving impoverished women’s chances of survival before, during and after pregnancy is an issue of rights and social justice. It is also a sound economic and social investment, given the importance of women to the well-being of their children, families and societies” (Moore, The Hill, 7/7).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

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