Stalled Progress in Reducing Maternal Mortality Calls for Action
Maternity Foundation is deeply concerned by new data showing that global progress in reducing maternal mortality is stalling. In 2023 alone, an estimated 260,000 women died from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. This amounts to a maternal death every two minutes.
These figures highlight the growing gap between current trends and the UN Sustainable Development Goal of reducing the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to fewer than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.
To achieve this target, the MMR would need to decline by approximately 15 percent each year. A stark contrast to the current 1.5 percent.
The figures come from the latest Trends in Maternal Mortality report, produced by WHO on behalf of the UN Maternal Mortality Estimation Inter-Agency Group (including WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World Bank Group, and UN DESA). The report also highlights the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an additional 40,000 maternal deaths in 2021 compared to the previous year, underlining the importance of ensuring such care during pandemics and other emergencies.
A preventable crisis
The data reveals a painful truth. Most maternal deaths are entirely preventable. But health systems, particularly in fragile and conflict-affected areas, remain under severe pressure following recent global development funding cuts, allowing this crisis to worsen.
Currently, clinics are closing, frontline health workers are being lost, and essential medicine supply chains are breaking down. These include life-enhancing as well as life-saving treatments for postpartum haemorrhage, pre-eclampsia, and malaria. These cuts are not just abstract figures in a budget. They translate into real lives lost and progress undone.
Maternal mortality is rooted in poverty and inequality. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to bear a disproportionate burden, accounting for around 70 percent of all maternal deaths. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa is 400 times more likely to die during birth than a woman in Australia or New Zealand.
Women in humanitarian settings are at even greater risk. In 2023, the MMR in conflict-affected countries and territories was 504 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, more than twice the global average.
Call to Action – invest in midwives
At Maternity Foundation, we join UN agencies in calling for urgent and sustained investment in maternal health. Without it, women around the world, especially in humanitarian and low-resource settings, will continue to pay the price of failing systems and reduced funding.
While expanding access to maternal health services is critical, it is equally important to ensure the quality of those services. This includes investing in the skills of midwives and other healthcare professionals as well as addressing other health conditions that increase the risk of complications, such as noncommunicable and communicable diseases.
We remain committed to expanding access to quality maternal care in remote and fragile settings to prevent morbidity and maternal mortality. Through the Safe Delivery+ Programme, we equip midwives with the knowledge and tools needed to manage life-threatening complications and deliver safer care rooted in the midwifery model.
This crisis is not inevitable. It reflects global priorities and decisions. The evidence shows that with the right investments and cross-sector collaboration, women can thrive, and maternal deaths can be significantly reduced. The cost of inaction is far too high. Now is the time to forge new partnerships, rethink funding strategies, and place maternal health back at the heart of the global agenda. Progress is possible if we act together, with purpose and urgency.
Every woman deserves not only to survive pregnancy but to experience it in health, safety, and dignity.
It should not cost life to give life.
