Ipas > Making every mother count on Mother’s Day

Making every mother count on Mother’s Day

May 9, 2005

The well-being of society depends of protecting women's health and lives.

Photo courtesy of Trygve Bolstad, Panos Pictures.

Celebrated since ancient times, Mother’s Day provides the opportunity to reflect on the importance of protecting the health and lives of the world’s women and children.

“The well-being of society is directly linked to the health and survival of women and children,” said Elizabeth Maguire, Ipas President and CEO. “When mothers survive and thrive, their children survive and thrive. When mothers suffer, so do their children.”

For many women, motherhood is a risky proposition. Every minute of every day, a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. That adds up to more than half a million deaths every year, primarily in developing countries. And every year, an estimated one million young children die as a result of the death of their mother.

On Mother’s Day, Ipas urges the international community to recognize that women and children’s lives can and should be saved using existing knowledge and affordable tools and technology.

For example, 13 percent of all pregnancy-related deaths are due to complications from unsafe abortion. Almost 70,000 women’s lives could be saved every year by increasing access to comprehensive abortion care.

This is echoed by two major international reports released recently. The World Health Organization’s World Health Report 2005, launched on World Health Day in April, points to the need for health systems to address the problem of unsafe abortion. It cites manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) as a proven and effective intervention for management of incomplete abortion and induced abortion, thereby reducing maternal disability and death.

Additionally, the report of the United Kingdom’s Commission for Africa states in a section on sexual and reproductive rights that “without greater access to contraception, antenatal care and skilled attendance at delivery, safe abortion and postabortion care, the numbers of deaths will accelerate.” The report shows that rates of pregnancy-related deaths in Africa are the highest in the world.

The report also calls for “increasing the availability of condoms, attended births, emergency obstetric care and referral systems, and improving safe abortion services” as key ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies and reduce maternal mortality.

In establishing the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, the international community made a commitment to reducing maternal deaths by three-quarters and reducing child mortality by two-thirds by the year 2015. Efforts toward reaching these goals, even where the goals are not fully achieved, will have the potential to transform the lives of millions of mothers, children and families.

For more information, contact:
Kirsten Sherk
Senior Associate, Media Relations
e-mail: sherkk@ipas.org
phone: 919.960.5612
fax: 919.929.0258