U.S. must do more to stem maternal mortality at home and in Third World

It takes a nation and a world community to save a mother’s life .

All of us would be hard-pressed to think of a tragedy more devastating than a woman dying in childbirth. As a public health nurse who worked closely with young mothers and their families, I know too well that the loss of a mother shatters her family and threatens the well-being of her surviving children. Yet, every minute of every day a woman dies due to complications stemming from pregnancy and childbirth. Overwhelmingly, these deaths are preventable if women have access to the most basic primary and emergency healthcare.

While almost all women in industrialized nations take it for granted that they will have healthy and safe deliveries, pregnancy is a death sentence for as many as one in six women in the developing world. Even though 15 percent of all women experience life-threatening complications during childbirth, 99 percent of women who die due to lack of adequate care live in the developing world.

Similarly, poor and minority women in underserved communities in industrialized countries are also at disproportionate risk. Surprisingly, the United States ranks 41st in maternal mortality in the world and dead last among industrialized nations, despite our unprecedented wealth and advanced medical technology. Sadly, maternal mortality is the leading killer of women of reproductive age throughout the world and the single greatest indicator of the inequities faced by poor and minority women in industrialized and developing nations.

Twenty years ago, the World Health Organization and its partners united around the Safe Motherhood Initiative to reduce the rates of maternal death and illness. Yet, two decades later U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced that no overall progress has been made in achieving Millennium Development Goal 5 to reduce maternal deaths by 75 percent by 2015. Countries with the highest levels of maternal mortality have made virtually no progress over the past 15 years.

Meanwhile, after a steep decline in maternal deaths in the 20th century, maternal mortality rates in the United States have increased since 1982.

These statistics reveal a healthcare system that is failing to take care of the world’s poorest, most vulnerable girls and women. Furthermore, dangerously low and declining investment in women’s health jeopardizes the achievement of critical development goals, including reduction of infant mortality and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

We must not continue to allow women to go without the most basic life-saving care when giving life to the next generation. Global leaders must strengthen health care systems to protect women and their children, especially in the countries where maternal and infant mortality is high. In all countries, a functioning healthcare system that connects underserved communities to obstetric and emergency care must be established and sustained. And we must train greater numbers of skilled birth attendants.

World leaders will convene this month in Washington, D.C., at the World Bank to evaluate priorities for investments necessary to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

As they consider which programs to fund, I urge them to dramatically increase investments in women’s healthcare. Not only is this an investment that will reap enormous economic benefits, providing for the health and survival of millions of women around the world will have an immediate and lasting impact on communities that are devastated by the premature loss of their mothers.
Congress can also play an important role in addressing this crisis by passing the U.S. Commitment to Global Child Survival Act, which improves the U.S. contribution to reducing maternal and infant mortality internationally and at home. Furthermore, Congress should provide necessary resources to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve data collection and analysis. If we take these steps we can make a world of difference.

Hopefully leaders from around the world will finally heed this clarion call to address the challenging, but solvable, problem of maternal mortality. We simply have to do better for our mothers and their families, both in the U.S. and around the world. Let us all do our part to ensure every woman’s most basic right — to live through pregnancy and childbirth so she can nurture her children and contribute to the well-being of her family, community, and nation.

Capps serves as the Democratic co-chairwoman of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues. Last fall she led a congressional delegation representing the United States to the Women Deliver Global Conference on Maternal Mortality.