MONDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- The global maternal mortality rate has decreased significantly since 1980, with countries such as China, Egypt, Ecuador and Bolivia making large strides to reduce their rates, though the United States is among a group of high-income countries where maternal mortality rates have increased, according to an article published online April 12 in The Lancet.
Margaret C. Hogan, of the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues developed a database of 2,651 observations of maternal mortality for 181 countries from 1980 to 2008. The database was constructed from vital registration data, censuses, surveys, and verbal autopsy studies.
The authors write that worldwide, maternal mortality decreased from 526,300 in 1980 to 342,900 in 2008. The maternal mortality ratio (MMR; the number of women dying for every 100,000 live births) was reduced from 422 in 1980 to 251 in 2008. In the United States, the MMR increased from 12 in 1990 to 17 in 2008. Canada, Demark, Austria, Norway and Singapore also recorded increases. However, developing countries such as China, Egypt, Ecuador and Bolivia have experienced accelerated progress in lowering the MMR. Twenty-three countries are on track to meet Millennium Development Goal 5, which targets a 75 percent reduction in the MMR from 1990 to 2015. More than 50 percent of maternal deaths were in six countries in 2008: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The researchers found that, without HIV, there would have been 281,000 maternal deaths worldwide in 2008.
"Progress needs to be accelerated in countries where further substantial reductions in maternal mortality should be achievable with heath-system reform," the authors conclude.
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