UN seeks to end pregnancy-related deaths

AS thousands of groups in 140 countries gathered to mark World Population Day yesterday, the United Nations has called for more action to promote women’s rights and reduce the millions of deaths resulting from unwanted pregnancies.

“The importance of World Population Day this year is to advance women’s empowerment and particularly to ensure universal access to reproductive health,” said Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

World Population Day, set by the United Nations Development Programme in 1989, was marked by events from university campuses in Afghanistan and the streets of Nepal to mosques in Yemen and a congressional debate in Washington.

According to UNFPA, contraception can prevent 2.7 million infant deaths a year, reduce poverty and ease pressure on the environment.

One of UNFPA’s targets, for developing nations to meet their needs for contraceptives by 2015, was echoed by the World Bank, which said 51 million unplanned pregnancies occur because women lack access to birth control.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon called for governments to honour promises to take action.

“The rate of death for women as they give birth remains the starkest indicator of the disparity between rich and poor,” Ban said in a statement.

UNFPA says 536,000 women die every year from pregnancy-related causes.

Another 10 million women suffer injury or disability such as infection, infertility and other medical complications.

Although Mane acknowledges major milestones in contraception use — since 1960 the proportion of married women in developing countries using contraception has risen to 60% from less than 10% — she says challenges remain for broader social development and access to information.

“Providing better education to women is critical in order for them to make the right decisions,” she said.

She said the promotion of birth control, gender equality and reproductive health are inclusive of religious groups.

“There are discussions regarding contraception,” she said. “They can work on parts of the agenda that they are comfortable with.”

Fewer than 5% of young people in developing countries use modern contraception, with the largest needs in Africa and South Asia.

In Afghanistan, for example, only 4% of people use any sort of contraceptives and 78% have never even heard of family planning.

Afghanistan also has among the highest fertility rates in the world with 6.7 children per women, with almost 15% of infants dying and mothers having a one-in-eight chance of dying while giving birth.

“If tomorrow we could pledge to continue to work on this area to protect the health of women, mothers and their babies and to ensure that families have the right to decide on spacing and timing of their children, I think we would make major headway,” the UN director said.