About GapCast #7
- With Hans Rosling

How many women die every year during pregnancy and childbirth? Do we even know?

The most qualified guess tells us that about 500 000 women die every year because of pregnancy. However, the number are so uncertain, that we cant even tell if the situation improves from one yar to another.

So, If the uncertainty about the maternal mortality is so high, is there any point of measuring maternity mortality at all? And how can we tell if things are improving?

The answers are: Yes it is. And there are better ways of monitor progress for pregnant women in the world.

While maternal mortality cannot be used to measure progress year by year towards save motherhood, at least not in low income countries. We need to know the magnitude of the problem. Therefore we need to know roughly how many women dies every year while giving birth.

But in order to solve the problem, and to see if we are improving from one year to another, we should look at other indicators such as how many birth are attended by skilled health staff.

Download movie in high resolution:
QuickTime | Windows Media player (Coming soon)