Maternal Mortality

More than 500000 women die each year all over the world due to complications arising from pregnancy and child birth. About 99 percent of the deaths can be attributed to poor maternal health condition and inadequate access to healthcare facilities. Maternal health and reducing maternal mortality remain vital component of sustainable development goals (SDGs). High-functioning maternal health programs must eliminate the primary causes of ma-ternal death and lead to declining maternal mortality ratios, before shifting focus toward indirect causes.

Primary Causes of Maternal deaths

BMMS 2010 and BMMS 2016 found that 55 percent of maternal deaths are caused by two major but preventable causes namely haemorrhage (31 percent) and eclampsia (24 percent). Additional causes include abortion (7%), obstructed labour (3 percent), and other direct and indirect causes:

Declining trends of MMR in Bangladesh

During last few decades, Bangladesh made a significant decrease in maternal mortality: a reduc-tion of MMR from 322 to 194/100,000 live births between 2001 and 2010. The decline is mostly due to better care-seeking practices and improved access to emergency obstetric care. The 2010 maternal mortality survey revealed that over 50% of maternal deaths in Bangladesh are caused either by haemorrhage (31 percent) or eclampsia (20 percent), while other causes include ob-structed labour (8 percent), abortion, and sepsis. Most of those deaths in other sense happens due to poor access and quality of care.