Too Many Mothers Are Dying in Childbirth. Here ’s How They Can Be Saved

With recent reports of difficult pregnancies and births from celebrities like Beyonce, Serena Williams, and Alyson Felix, and the death of Olympian Tori Bowie during childbirth, the long-overlooked dangers of maternal and child mortality have become increasingly prominent. In a new report published by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the global health philanthropic group highlights lagging progress in achieving United Nations (UN) goals for lowering mother and child deaths, along with innovative ways of addressing the problems with relatively inexpensive and easy to implement solutions that the group projects could cut such deaths by as much as half, saving 2 million lives [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “Every death matters,” says Bill Gates, of the group’s decision to draw attention to maternal and child mortality. Under current circumstances, the world will not reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to reduce maternal mortality to less than 70 per 100,000 live births and neonatal mortality to lower than 12 per 1,000 live births by 2030. Currently, maternal mortality has plateaued at 150 to 160 per 100,000 live births since 2015, and child mortality ranged from 16 to 18 per 1,000 live births in the same period. “Global health does not get the attention it deserves, and we want to remind people that the UN did pick these goals, and we are off track,” says Gates. Each day, 800 mothers around the world die ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news