UNICEF Focuses On Maternal Health On International Women's Day

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has marked this year’s International Women’s Day 2008 by drawing attention to the need for improvement in maternal health care. A statement issued by UNICEF in Accra said better access to maternal health care would reduce the estimated half a million pregnancy-related deaths that occurred each year and help reduce child mortality rates. It said maternal mortality was far higher in the developing world than in developed countries, but sub-Saharan African countries had made less progress in reversing the trend as compared to other middle-income countries. “In West and Central Africa, on average the risk that a woman will die in childbirth is 1 in 17, compared with 1 in 8,000 in developed countries. One in four pregnant women currently receives no antenatal care and more than 40 percent give birth without the assistance of a skilled attendant,” the statement said. The statement quoted Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF, as saying “evidence from the World Health Organization shows that a motherless child is more likely to die before the age of two than an infant whose mother survives”. “Improvements in the health of pregnant women and new mothers are critical to ensuring children survive their first years.“ According to her, access to pre- and ante-natal care must be improved, as part of integrated efforts to establish stronger national health systems since investing in maternal health care was crucial to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. On Ghana’s interventions, the statement said the Ministry of Health, UNICEF and other partners, had adopted an integrated health programme through a High Impact Rapid Delivery (HIRD) approach. This, the statement said, was an integrated approach of cost-effective strategies combining immunization, infant and young child feeding, and management of childhood illnesses and improved ante-natal care which had started impacting positively in Ghana. It said over 3.5 million Insecticide Treated Nets had also been distributed to children and expectant mothers to prevent malaria infections.