'About 60 women die of pregnancy-related complications daily'
By Our Reporter
ISLAMABAD, April 18: About 60 women die of pregnancy-related complications in the country everyday, while unskilled birth attendants are one of the major factors responsible for the high maternal mortality rate.
These statistics were shared here on Sunday at a press conference jointly addressed by director-general health Maj-Gen (retired) Mohammad Aslam and Dr Oliver Brasseur, the UNFPA representative in Pakistan.
The press conference was called to announce the holding of a three-day "Regional consultation on skilled birth attendants in South and West Asia", starting from Monday. The conference is being organized by the federal health ministry and the UNFPA.
Maternal mortality ratio in Pakistan is estimated to be 340- 400/100,000 live births, which means one in every 31 women dies of pregnancy-related problems. One of the reasons of this high rate is less percentage of births attended by skilled persons.
In Pakistan, only 24 per cent of the deliveries are conducted by skilled persons. In rural areas, majority of the deliveries are conducted by traditional (trained or untrained) birth attendants, who fall in the category of unskilled birth attendants.
Meanwhile, less than 40 per cent births are attended by skilled birth attendants in South Asia. Globally, scientific evidence suggests that training of traditional birth attendants have no impact on reducing maternal mortality ratio.
History bears witness to the fact that any country of the world, developing or developed, which has succeeded in bringing down its maternal mortality ratio has done so by active involvement of skilled midwives.
Those that did it without the midwives took much longer to reach the same levels. However, only skilled birth attendants cannot affect maternal mortality and morbidity unless timely access to care for complications is ensured, for which there is a need for strengthening emergency obstetric care services.
Increase in use of family planning methods also helps in reducing maternal mortality by avoiding high-risk pregnancies and improving the health of mothers. During the press conference, both the speakers announced that the health ministry and the UNFPA had signed an agreement in the current week under which the UN agency would be providing grant assistance of $2.4 million to the health sector in 2004 for strengthening of reproductive health services focusing on 10 districts of the country.
This agreement is under the overall $30 million Country Programme Action, signed earlier this year between the Pakistan government and the UNFPA. The director-general expressed his hope that the partnership between the ministry and the UNFPA would help in taking forward the agenda for health sector reforms in the country. He emphasized putting efforts together by all stakeholders to promote the cause.
He said the UNFPA's Country Technical Services Team, South and West Asia office, Katmandu, had proposed this regional workshop be held in Pakistan.
He told the mediapersons that representatives of the WHO, Unicef, UNFPA and other international organizations were also participating in this regional consultation. France Donnay of the UNFPA headquarters, New York, is specially visiting Pakistan to participate in the consultation.
He said the regional consultation in Islamabad would facilitate in formulating country-specific strategies to increase the availability of skilled birth attendants and the enabling environment to provide skilled care.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Oliver Brasseur said the countries of South and West Asia were lagging behind some of the targets set for all member countries of United Nations in 2001 under the Millennium Development Goals agreement.
