Submitted by Susan K. Brems Ph.D. Senior Deputy Assistant
Administrator, Bureau for Global Health The World Health
Organization said Wednesday that fewer women are now dying each
year from complications during pregnancy and childbirth. A new
report found that 358,000 women died during pregnancy or
childbirth in 2008, mostly in poor countries of sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia. This represents a 34 percent decline from
previous international estimates of greater than 500,000
maternal deaths annually. USAID welcomed the publication of the
WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United
Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank. USAID has
been one of the largest donors with sustained investments and
programming in both maternal health and family planning. The
Inter-agency methodology estimates 358,000 maternal deaths each
year worldwide, close to the 343,000 deaths estimated by the
Hogan et al. Institute for Health Metrics (IHME) published in
the Lancet in April 2010. Inter-agency methodo